One Design Shorthanded Sailing

This is a subject I am very passionate about as this has been a huge part of my sailing career.  Singlehanded sailing for me started as a kid in my first pram.  Yes, I know it is not the same as were this post will go, but it was a start for a six year old kid having his first boat, and freedom to go out and sail on his own.  This along with our family cruising and local club racing I was one happy kid.

Fifteen years later in 1979 I purchased a new Capri 25 while working at Westbrook Harbor Marina, CT.  We raced the boat crewed, and did very well winning most of the regattas, and evening races we enter for a couple of years.  Then I had the itch to go singlehanded, and took off for the 1983 summer on my 25’ boat without a motor, head, water tank, autopilot, and had a summer I still think about to this day. I lived on that boat for two years in New England year round. 

That summer there were so many adventures, such going through Woods Hole pass with kite up, and just making it in 20 kts of wind, as the Coast Guard told me to put on my motor.  I answered, “Well if I had one”.  Sailing all night to make Newport where I tied up at a dock before sunrise.  I woke up to banging on the boat; I had tied up at the Australia 2 outer dock.  They looked at me and said to leave, in a very nice way, since I looked like an exhausted boat hippy.  After that summer the fire was lit for my singlehanded sailing that is still burning hot. 

I stopped for a few years when the cost of living with college came into play.  But as soon as I graduated and moved to Newport after school I was back at it.  In total to date, I have owned a lot shorthanded boats, and it has been a blast.  Racing them while living in RI for three plus decades.

I sailed all of those boats PHRF, fleet and shorthanded.  And after the last three years being on the PHRF-NB technical committee, I have been trying to right the wrongs I see in shorthanded ratings, to no avail.  This means the time is right to find the shorthanded sailors who agree that One Design Shorthanded is the best option.  

You can still race double handed, crewed, or cruise with the family.  But the core of what I want to do is Singlehanded One Design.  My ideas are endless when it comes to this endeavor, since I think about it daily.  So you might say, well just buy one of the new boats on the market and let the builder class organizations do the work.  I would love to do this but these are not the boats I am talking about.  Sure a JPK 1010, JPK 1030, Archambault 31 (Loved it), SunFast 3300, SunFast 3200, and other boats designed for this type of racing, are great options.  But the cost is crazy money for most sailors who have this passion.  Sure they will sell those boats, and might even get one design racing, which I would love to be part of it.  But with yearly running cost at 10-30+% of the purchase price to campaign most boats. And the cost of the above boats on the line racing at $275,000 to $375,000.  Sorry but that is out of reach for most of the best shorthanded sailors.  So were do we find the solution?

We start by looking in San Francisco where they have Moore 24, Express 27, Santa Cruz 27, Olson 30, all doing shorthanded one design racing.  Now those are affordable boats ($10-$20,000) that will work perfectly for shorthanded in New England.  And there are other classes in the same price range and a bit higher that could work.  We just need a group of four or five sailors who actually have this passion, and can afford the to buy decent used boats. These boats will keep the running and campaigning cost in control. Express 27 Main $2950, Archambault Main $11,000.

There could be a tier or two higher in cost, but that might eliminate a lot of the best sailors.  But that is an option if enough people are ready to buy.

One Design is so much better then PHRF shorthanded, where ratings will always be an issue, and not the best sailors always wins, but the best rating for those conditions, or the wrong rating for that boat wins. 

I am sure there are other boats that can be used, but they need to be well built, proven shorthanded ocean capable, and affordable.  Hell the Moore 24 WON the Pacific Cup overall from San Fran to Hawaii on the windiest PacCup ever, with two amazing shorthanded sailors on board.  The Express 27 had 7 boats one design start in the Pac Cup, double handed, and just had 22 boats double handed in the Three Bridge Fiasco 25 Jan 2020, congratulations Rebecca and Zac.  The Moore 24 class had 26 boats in the same race.

Having owned an Express 27, I would go back to it in a second for one design shorthanded racing.  The Olson 30 is also excellent, having raced and trekked with my buddy John on his well set up Olson.  The Archambault 31 is an option with good used prices, SeaScape 27 looks interesting, but not enough used boats.  There are options and we could have one design starts.  Imagine five boats in the Solo/Twin, and other races it would be a blast.  NO RATINGS!  The smaller boats could be hoist launched, and hauled, trailer to your yard, fleet working together doing jobs on boats.  This type of shorthanded one design will bring us back to the joy of sailing, and not hurt the bank accounts.

So lets get this going.  I am willing to be the center of it, and help make it happen, but I cannot do it on my own.  We need a fleet of the same boats.  Currently there are five Express 27’s on the market and six Olson 30’s these are great opportunities to get this rolling this summer.  If people are willing to spend more it could be a lot of other classes.  Get the conversation going and lets make it happen for a start this summer.

Contact me if you have any interest, and lets work as a team to make this happen.  Even if you have never sailed shorthanded, but have the desire, dive in.  A one design fleet would make us all excel, and the best sailor that day would win.

Thanks for reading and I hope this is a start of a great adventure.

See you soon, Paul

A little Express 27 fun sailing to get you to help.