Tom Charpentier Blogs

From Brian Clancy See entry list here

Friday, 12 AM Good morning! In a few short hours I'll be on my way to Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine to cover the 2011 Women's New England Championship, the 45th edition of the Reed Trophy. I may be biased, but I believe Bowdoin's sailing site on Quahog Bay off of Bethel Point in Cundy's Harbor is the most scenic venue in all of college sailing. This year Bowdoin is fielding a brand new fleet of FJs. Forecast for the weekend is rain Saturday, mostly sunny Sunday, and plenty of breeze both days. Fourteen teams will be contesting a total of ...

Earlier this month Stephen Colbert announced his intention to compete in the Charleston-Bermuda Race in May. Colbert will be racing on a Farr 65 owned by UK adventure sailing company OnDeck, which recently opened a new location in Charleston and is presenting the event this year. The Charleston native previously sailed in the 2005 edition of the race. The race is still a few months away but already Colbert is very publicly using his larger-than-life stage persona to bring attention to our sport in a way very few celebrities have in recent year...

What do you see yourself sailing 10 years from now? 20? 30? If you said dinghies, then - as the Kiwis say - "good on you." But at some point most of us will eventually wind up in keelboats. There are lots of reasons why this is true. Some may not want to keep up with the physical demands of dinghy sailing. The truly elite may look for the professional opportunities in high-level big boat sailing. Many of us will just plain like keelboats better. Whatever the reason, think about the training you've had through your life, from your first day in ...

One design classes are unique all around the world, and New Zealand is no exception with plenty of fun and quirky boats. I thought I'd share some of these with you since pretty much none of the popular classes here exist in the US. Most of my experience so far has been on keelboats so I'll start there. The Young 88 is probably the largest and one of the most competitive classes in Auckland. The class makeup is similar to the J/105 fleet in the US in that it's a reasonably expensive owner/driver class that was at least originally envisioned as a...

You go somewhere like Auckland and you expect a place where sailing's just about perfect. There's temperate weather year round, more sailboats per capita than any city in the world, and plenty of infrastructure with a beautiful venue. What's not to love? Not a lot, actually. It's pretty much as advertised. I sailed in a Wednesday night fleet last night that included 112 boats spread across 12 divisions including 3 one-design classes. It included boats from 52 foot IRC rocketships (anyone reading this got a sweet hookup?) to lightning-fast multi...