In fact preparing a wardrobe of sail designs for a still to be launched performance yacht is not so hard... if you have the tools for the job

How do you develop the perfect sail inventory and sail shapes for a boat that hasn't even been built? We’re talking about X-Yachts’ new XR 41, the company’s first pure raceboat for a number of years which is intended as a pivotal model that will take the Danish yard back to its roots as a builder of championship-winning production yachts. Chris Williams of North Sails says the best route is always to start the process at an early stage of the design phase.

The goal of winning a podium place at the 2025 ORC world championship in Estonia demands that this design performs to the optimum right out of the box. ‘Being involved at an early stage allows us to avoid compromises and ensure that the sail and rig setup is optimised right from the start,’ Williams says, ‘rather than making adjustments later.’

Williams has huge experience in this field, with notable projects including the Melges 40, as well as custom boats such as a Carkeek 40, 47 and 60 and several TP52s. For the XR 41 he’s bringing the design processes associated with these grand prix style racers to a production yacht. This may be an unusual step, but the final outcome will bring massive benefits to XR 41 owners.

As part of the process, for example, Williams says they modelled different rig sizes, checked different headsail versus mainsail areas and even analysed the best fore and aft position for the mast. ‘This project definitely benefited by getting North Sails involved early and not just being given the sail plan and told to make sails that fit those dimensions,’ he adds.

It also enabled the design team to follow trends in some of the more established grand prix classes and as a result the XR 41 will have many of the cutting edge features that you would expect of a custom raceboat, even though it’s a production design. For example, at this level it’s becoming the norm to sail with more mast rake while using mast step shim stacks aggressively so that you don't need to pull the headstay tight to tension the rig. The North design team will also work with the sparmaker to ensure sail shapes are optimised for the mast stiffness and headstay tension targets, as well as the spreader sweep angles and geometry of the rig.

Williams says they ran about eight different rig geometries to find the optimal configuration. This process also involves checking the performance of sail shapes across a range of wind conditions – six, eight, 10, 12, 16 knots and upwards – ensuring that the sails perform optimally in all scenarios.

He also highlights the importance of integrating sail design with the rig and both keel and rudder design. In addition to top sailors including Bouwe Bekking and Jesper Radich, the North team is also working with KND’s Roland Kleiter, whose inputs including the fine tuning of the appendage sizes to make sure everything's perfectly balanced.

The design team also has the huge benefit of access to the North Design Suite, which allows for precise modelling and adjustment of sails and rigs throughout the design process. The software packages cover sail shape (Spiral), sail structure (Warps), rig design (Desman), computational fluid dynamics (Flow) and flying shapes under load (Membrain).

North Design Suite enables a team of designers to model every aspect of rig geometry, sail shape and structure, wind pressure and more. It’s a huge benefit when you’re developing an aero package for a new yacht like the XR 41

The starting point is Desman, which creates a virtual 3D model of the boat and rig. It allows every element of the rig to be modelled, including shroud sizes, mast stiffness both longitudinally and athwartships, as well as the geometry of everything from the spreaders to backstay and shroud locations. ‘This gives us a really accurate model of the mast that we can combine with the sail shape and structure outputs,’ says Williams.

Spiral then allows three-dimensional sails to be placed on the Desman model before wind pressure or load are applied. Every dimension of the sail can be precisely adjusted.

‘Warps is a really powerful programme that allows us to put structural tapes anywhere we want in any density or orientation,’ adds Williams. A large catalogue of different tape styles allows designers to choose optimal ratios of different materials, including carbon and Dyneema, to give the sail exactly the properties they desire.

Flow introduces wind pressure to the sails created by Spiral and Warps. Pressure varies across the sail’s surface based on the specific design and the strength and direction of airflow. Membrain balances wind pressure, sail shape, and rig forces using data provided by Flow to deform the aero package as a unified structure. New data is then sent back to Flow for optimisation by the sail designers.

This enables the designers to trim and tune the sails, making all the adjustments that are possible when afloat, with changes in loads of standing rigging, sheets, and so on calculated continuously. It also shows designers the flying shapes of each sail at a variety of heel angles, traveller locations and apparent wind angles. They can even alter halyard and outhaul tension to see the differences in sail shapes, as well as determining the differences that variation in rig tune make to sail shapes. This is a critical factor given the significant influence rig tune has on sail shapes.

This stage of the design is an iterative process, so Williams says they typically carry out a few loops, improving the sail shape and optimising the trimming each time. ‘One of the nice things about the North software,’ he says, ‘is each loop can be very quick. If I design a mainsail with the draft too far forward because it has too much luff curve, for example, it only takes 10 minutes to redo the whole model and try a sail with different shape inputs.’ The software also means the North Sails team can provide detailed tuning guides even for a one-off or prototype boat.

North’s 3Di technology means the exact designed shape can be transferred to the finished sails every time. ‘What we design is very close to what we see on the water,’ says Williams, ‘as the robotics used for making 3Di sails means we build the sail with really high precision.’

3Di also offers an enviable blend of performance and durability so it’s ideal for the XR 41 project. A key benefit is that the designed shape is retained as the sail ages, even after many thousands of miles. It might cost a little more initially than other options but its excellent performance and longevity offer great value to owners. ‘3Di provides a unique blend of performance and durability,’ Williams says. ‘The sails’ ability to maintain shape and performance over time offers great value, especially for sailors competing in diverse racing environments.’

Tuning and optimising sail designs is an iterative process in North Design Suite, comparing the effects of trimming on a range of different sail shape inputs

The sails for the XR 41 will also benefit from Helix, North Sails’ Structured Luff solution, which simultaneously reduces halyard loads and luff sag, creating a more aerodynamically efficient flying shape. The mainsail, also Helix, offers better shape retention, load distribution and easily repeatable sail trim settings using a hydraulic cunningham.

The shift from traditional pinhead mainsails to square top mainsails also brings significant performance benefits and, while the XR 41’s mainsail won’t be as extreme as that of a TP52, it will be larger than existing typical ORC designs. Benefits will include improved light air performance, quicker acceleration off the start line, out of tacks and at mark roundings, as well as enhanced downwind speed.

What does it feel like when the sails first go up on a new raceboat? ‘As accurate as our tools are there's always a little bit of excitement,’ says Williams. ‘This is a year-long process by the time the first boats launch and it’s always part of the learning process for us.’

How much did the typical weather conditions at the venue for the 2025 ORC World Championship influence decisions about the sail inventory and sail shapes? ‘If you want to win a championship, you need a really good all-around boat,’ says Williams. ‘It's easy to win a single race if you make a boat that's really good in light air or really good in breeze, but the goal here is to have a really good all-rounder.’

That's also great news for owners who want to take their boats to different events. They benefit from the reassurance their vessels will be just as well set up as the professionally sailed works boats and that their sail inventory will remain just as competitive the following season.

Click here for more information on North Sails »

The team at X-Yachts will have been watching Admiral’s Cup 2025 developments with wry smiles. An event at which they were no strangers to the podium back in its heyday. Don’t bet against a repeat performance in 12 months' time...

Over the last few decades, Danish X-Yachts have become increasingly famous for their beautiful, handcrafted performance cruisers. But originally, the brand was built on race wins at the highest level. All through the eighties and the first part of the nineties, a stream of revolutionary new models from X-Yachts won basically every championship there was, primarily under the IOR rule. Only later on did their focus shift to the market for luxury performance cruisers.

Presently, X-Yachts offers three ranges: XP, a performance/ racing oriented range, Pure X, positioned as a clean-cut performance cruising line (in recent years the range with most models on the programme) – and finally XC, which are more dedicated cruising vessels. But the latest model, soon to be revealed, has a radically different profile. Actually, the XR 41 could be the beginning of a new range. And if you hadn’t guessed already, the R stands for racing.

For the first time in decades, the concept of this new model is almost entirely a pure offshore handicap racer

So, the heat is on. In the racing community everyone’s eyes will be glued to this boat – especially next year in August, when the new ORC racer from X-Yachts crosses the start line at the ORC World Championship in Estonia. The ambition is clearly stated: This is a boat built to win the gold medal.

So, is this a story of returning to the roots? CEO Kraen Brinck Nielsen nods. ‘Yes, we are born and bred on the racing scene,’ he says, ‘so it feels really good to have the opportunity again to create a boat that is truly built to win championships. And we take this very seriously. This boat is really hardcore ORC optimised.’

It’s been quite a few years since the last time X-Yachts brought something like this to the table. So, the obvious question is, are they still up to it?

‘Well, we knew we had to approach this task with a certain humility’, says Brinck Nielsen. ‘We have a long tradition of making everything in-house, but this time it was clear that we had to build a team reinforced with external specialists. We wanted to be absolutely sure that we were able to use the best knowledge possible, especially when it comes to optimising for ORC. It’s a very specific know-how that goes into a thing like this.’

The cockpit is laid out for a full crew but should also work for shorthanded use

‘That’s why we brought in a group of international experts to work closely with our own designers: C Performance with Casper Nielsen, a CFD expert with extensive experience in rating optimisation, and Vmax Yachting with Max Gurgel, a leading rating expert, data cruncher. Surge Projects with Javier Jaudenes was also deeply involved, especially with deck layout and interior. Jaudenes is a naval architect, also with CFD knowledge, but he has a lot of experience with superyachts and styling. In addition, we have had professional racers like Bouwe Bekking and Jesper Radich working with us. For the sail inventory, North Sails was a big asset, with especially Jens Christensen and Heine Sørensen contributing as sail designers. All in all, we have had a team with the best people you can get for this kind of thing’.

Brinck Nielsen sounds really happy just talking about the new race boat: ‘It’s a wildly exciting journey’, he says. ‘We have pushed it really far and will continue to do so. We see this boat as a game changer: To my knowledge, nobody has done this before, developed a production raceboat with such a high tech approach – for example, we have used neural networks and AI for the hull optimising. So, let me tell you what the designers did: They started out with three, you might say, families of hull design. They were all run through a CFD programme, able to do small, incremental changes. The results were first put into the ORC rule, to see in what direction the rating would be affected. Then they checked what the VPP predictions were – VPP is software able to predict actual speed potential, through the whole polar spectrum. If we could see a positive effect on VPP, that was bigger than the cost on the rating – or opposite: If the negative effect on VPP was smaller than the gain on the rating – we knew we were moving in the right direction.’

The hull form of the XR 41 looks – and is – significantly different from other X-Yacht models. Witness the shape of those chines in its aft quarters, for example, or the length of the bowsprit

‘I can give you a few examples: There are certain basic parameters for the hull shape. One of them is overhang fore and aft – how long and how high the overhangs are. Another basic parameter is the position of maximum draft. A third is the fullness of the hull, or the distribution of volume, if you will. Is it centred mainly midships, or more evenly towards the ends of the hull, with fuller fore and aft sections?’

He pulls up a drawing on the computer screen. ‘If you look at the renderings’, he says, ‘the final result is a hull with shallow draft, not much rocker, volume quite evenly distributed longships and with quite a bit of overhang, especially at the bow. The stern is fairly V-shaped, with the centreline barely touching the water surface. The hull is really wide for a 12-metre boat: The maximum beam is 4.18 metres.’

Brinck Nielsen has a history of racing himself, at one time even as part of the Soling crew for the later two-time Olympic winner Jesper Bank. ‘If you want to win a sailboat race under a handicap rule’, he says, ‘a lot of different aspects have to be thought about. The strategy has been to focus specifically on ORC category B, and to position the boat in the fastest end of that fleet. It’s a very important asset to be able to get a free lane right off the start line, and to do that you need to be one of the fastest boats upwind in your category.’

The XR 41 hull plug is being CNC machined with high precision and expertise at Nedcam in Holland

‘Now, categories in ORC are based partly on geometrical data – measurements, if you will – and partly on performance data. And the limits dividing the categories can be changed from year to year. Actually, they recently did just that. This is something we have been very aware of: to make sure the boat didn’t suddenly end up on the wrong side and get relegated to being one of the slowest boats in category A.’

It’s fun to win races, but X-Yachts is also a business. And isn’t it true that raceboats rarely make money? ‘That’s true’, he says, ‘nobody knows that better than us. So, we needed to be fairly confident that there was a viable business case in this project. Consequently we spent a lot of time analysing and discussing how to ensure that. We have been very aware of the potential pitfalls of moving into the racing scene. Early on we made a conscious decision not to make this a one design class. We wanted this to be a boat that could be continuously developed.’

‘Once a year we will be able to look at the latest version of the ORC rule and see what the new updates are. Previously an ambitious owner would hire an expert to optimise the boat, but we will be in a position to do annual upgrades here at the yard, offered to all the owners, based on the data our team of experts have come up with. It’s a completely new way of approaching this. You might want to change the keel bulb, use a bigger jib, whatever makes the boat adapt best to the latest version of the rule. We can do that for you’.

‘As you can hear, we are very focused on the rating aspect in this project, including the tricky question of how to address the fact that there will be annual rule changes in the coming years. Of course we can’t change the hull shape, but we can adapt keel, sail plan, rigging, rudder, displacement and several other things.

The XR 41 deck plan includes transverse tracks for a non-overlapping headsail, a low profile coachroof and eight winches with a generous amount of elbow room between them in a spacious cockpit

‘That is one of the biggest reasons for not setting this up as a one design class. When it comes to the hull itself, the only thing we could do is to give ourselves some slack when it comes to how close we were to the limits. If measurements were right on the edge, we could easily find ourselves on the wrong side a year or two from now. We have really been thinking about the future of the boat. This is not going to be a one hit wonder’.

‘And that includes resale value’, he continues. ‘An important question is, what happens after the active racing campaign? I mean, we build boats that don’t break, they last for decades. And a bit like our IMS series from the nineties, the XR 41 can have an active racing career, maybe five years, and then be used for sporty cruising afterwards. To accommodate this, we have built parts of the interior in modules that can be removed for racing and installed for cruising – for example parts of the galley and the lockers in the aft and front cabins. Deck layout is obviously set up for racing with a full crew, but it’s also designed to work for shorthanded use and even for singlehanded sailing.’

Down below, the XR 41 isn’t a raw racer. ‘That wouldn't make sense,’ explains Brinck Nielsen. ‘We have weight optimised a minimalist, functional and stylish interior for weight and balance, making it let's say “sporty comfortable” to stay below deck. Moreover, we are developing a series of modules that can be installed when additional comfort is needed. In principle the XR 41 can be transformed with few interventions from a winning racing boat into a more comfortable yet still very sporty cruising boat.’

The interior is described as weight optimised, minimalist, functional and stylish

As for the sail wardrobe, the XR 41 will come in two versions: Racing and sporty cruising. The racing version will have a square top mainsail and split backstay while the sporty cruising version will come with a smaller sail area, a pinhead mainsail and a single backstay. The keel can be supplied in a couple of different draughts, but 2.40m is the standard. For spinnakers, the main focus is asymmetric – that’s what the boat is set up for, with a relatively long bow sprit. But there is also an option to set it up for symmetrical spinnakers as well.

A raw racer normally has a short life and loses value after a few years. The XR 41 is designed to win races for many years and also to be used for sporty family sailing for decades. An X-Yacht is built to last decades.

Already by May this year, eight boats had been sold on prospect alone. Brinck Nielsen expects 15-20 sold within the year. ‘The ambition is to build around 80 boats over the next eight years’, he says. ‘Our estimate is that 10-15 of these will be hardcore, pure racers. That leaves the majority of the fleet to owners who will obviously also race, but at the same time use their boat for sporty cruising.’

The new XR 41 raceboat will be officially launched at Düsseldorf Boat Show in January next year.

Click here for more information on X-Yachts »

The new Sun Fast 30 is 880kg lighter than the SF3300 with the same upwind sail area and fractionally less downwind

With a vigorous range of winning designs in the 28-34ft range, to say that the combo of Jeanneau and their UK agents Sea Ventures have today’s key racing sector covered is somethng of an understatement...

To have one sprightly and successful 30-footer in your stable at a time when inshore and offshore racing in this size continues to increase in popularity is both fortunate and enviable. But to have a fleet of three highly appealing modern 30-footers that are as suitable and successful in fully crewed racing as they are shorthanded is surely more than just a coincidence.

To have such an embarrassment of riches is probably not be quite how UK South Coast-based Sea Ventures would describe their position, yet the reality is that after more than a decade of handson experience in this popular and growing corner of the sport they have become the go-to experts when it comes to advising those who are looking to move into the 30ft racing scene.

‘It’s true that we are proud of what we have been able to achieve both for the sport and for our clients,’ says managing director Nigel Colley, an enthusiastic shorthanded and solo sailor. ‘As Jeanneau dealers we had an early advantage with boats like the Sun Fast 3200 which was not only one of the most popular production 30-footers of her era, but built much of her reputation in the Transquadra Race where she proved herself as being a manageable and versatile design for anything from inshore to transatlantic racing.’

Today, while the Sun Fast 3200 is still considered to be a good starting point for those wishing to dip their toe in the water, there is plenty more choice. With over 100 built, Jeanneau’s offshore pocket rocket, the Sun Fast 3300, has proved to be the new benchmark in the double-handed scene, but this year sees the arrival of the new Sun Fast 30, which brings another option to the table. And then there’s the Farr X2 that’s also represented by Sea Ventures and that, on the face of it, is aimed at the same market.

So where do these boats fit in the 30ft scene and what sets each of them apart?

Sun Fast 3300
While her bluff bow and bulbous forward sections give her an almost scow-type appearance and suggest that the 3300 has been designed to excel in a particular set of conditions, designers Daniel Andrieu and Guillaume Verdier actually set out to create a versatile all-rounder. What they hadn’t expected to do was to create a trend-setter, but as the 3300 notched up impressive offshore results across a wide range of events and conditions, word spread fast and success bred further success.

Winning the ORC doublehanded world championships, the Transquadra and her class in the 2019 and 2021 Rolex Fastnet Races put her into the spotlight. Her performance under both ORC and IRC proved to be important factors as well, helping to spread the success further afield to the east coast USA and Australia where Lee Condell and Lincoln Dews finished in second place in the twohanded IRC division of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2022.

The Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300 is the current benchmark boat in the thriving doublehanded offshore racing scene

But aside from the double-handed success, the 3300 has also become well known for its ability to cater for a full crew, as well as the way in which the design can be optimised for different styles of racing or rating systems. And while achieving this might be considered to be at the expense of creating a strict one design, the reality is that the 3300’s solid credentials make her an easy boat to adapt to suit local fleets, yet without committing her to an extreme configuration.

Sun Fast 30
The Sun Fast 30 is the newest addition to the Jeanneau racing range. The concept started as a collaboration between the RORC and UNCL to create an entry level 30ft offshore racer. The project, which was developed by Multiplast before being taken into production by Jeanneau, was also aimed at being suitable for both shorthanded and full crews.

Broadly speaking the SF3300 and SF30 have similar voluminous forward sections making it difficult at first to see where the division between them lies, but it is what you can’t see that sets the 30 apart.

Traditionally there has been a school of thought that believes that for a boat of this size to be successful under IRC it needs to be heavy. And while this may be the case, carrying such extra weight clearly hinders performance. Instead, at 880kg lighter than the 3300 and with the same upwind sail area and fractionally less downwind, the SF30 breaks with this thinking from the outset.

Naturally, being three feet shorter helps to save weight but keeping the layout simple above and below decks has also seen gains.

The SF30 is also fundamentally different from the 3300 as she was conceived as a strict one design from the outset. This extends beyond a detailed specification that includes the instrumentation and the autopilot, through to limiting the sail inventory to just seven sails that can only be replaced on a three yearly cycle. The construction of the sails is also restricted to panelled sails as moulded sails are banned.

Having been selected for the World Sailing Doublehanded World Championships that will take place in Lorient this year and Cowes in 2025, the strict one design element is key.

Farr X2
Meanwhile, at 30ft LOA the Farr X2 may be the same length as the Sun Fast 30 and designed to cater for shorthanded or full crews, that is where the similarities end. Designed as a high-performance yet easy to manage machine, this is a semicustom boat that can be optimised to suit a wide range of racing areas and styles.

From the outset her appearance is markedly different.

The Farr X2 is a semi-custom boat that can be extensively optimised

While France may dominate the style of shorthanded racers in northern Europe where the bulbous scow shape is commonplace, this is not a configuration that has always translated elsewhere in the world. Instead, the X2 has a fine entry and dreadnought bow with lines that open out to a maximum beam that is carried well aft on a hull that has no tumblehome.

She’s also equipped with 250kg water ballast tanks aboard a boat that is 1,000kg lighter than the Sun Fast 3300 which means that she’s fully powered up in just 10 knots of breeze.

And yet, while she’s clearly a potent performer, the carbon rig (which is standard) and a refined deck layout makes it easy to change gear. The twin topmast backstays deliver the ability to tweak the rig quickly and efficiently while having the security of a full width chainplate and aft swept spreaders to achieve inherent fore and aft support.

Given the focus on shorthanded sailing, the ability to cross sheet using the four winches was something that the design team took a great deal of time developing. Even the water ballast controls can be operated on deck to avoid crew having to go down below.

The coachroof design is another area that the development team focussed a great deal of attention on as they combined the needs of a narrow headsail sheeting angle with the considerable protection that is afforded by the overhanging deckhouse structure.

Constructed from Infused Vinylester/ E-glass with PVC foam cores, this is also a sophisticated build throughout that provides the foundation for a versatile racer that can adapt to a wider range of international rules.

So, while these three boats may share similar vital statistics there is plenty to separate them once you get close up. From the strict one design focus of the Sun Fast 30, to the fully configurable Farr X2 and the super versatile Sun Fast 3300, these are three pocket rockets with three very different characters.

Click here for more information on Sea Ventures »

For the first time there was an OBR onboard each yacht during the Pantaenius Rund Skagen with huge success

Between them the combination of North Sea Week and the Pantaenius Rund Skagen marathon pack in a lot of sailing... and for a lot of sailors

The 89th North Sea Week attracted over 130 boats and 1,000 sailors to Helgoland in May. With a total of 15 races and one of the most varied and toughest offshore long-distance courses in Europe, the series, with its many faces, celebrated a furious final.

The North Sea and Baltic Sea, German Bight, Skagerrak and Kattegat: there is no other longdistance race like this one: the Pantaenius Rund Skagen challenges, tests and rewards its participants in as many ways as a crew could wish for. This year the legendary 510-mile regatta became a summer night's dream for 42 yachts, even though some innocently fell into the final lull traps.

First held in 1932, resumed after World War II in 1950 from Bremerhaven and starting again every two years off Heligoland since 1953, the Pantaenius Rund Skagen is the best-known and most exciting offshore race in German waters. At the same time it marks the showdown of North Sea Week, which was held for the 89th time around the Red Rock of Helgoland in May.

The 2024 Pantaenius Rund Skagen gave life to the motto ‘There is no better way to Kiel’. It reliably challenged its participants in three very different arenas, defining the character of the marathon: on the one hand the North Sea with shallow waters and rough seas, on the other the deceptively calm, moody and equally demanding Baltic Sea, which likes to throw nasty bludgeons between the legs of its challengers in form of flat phases and counter currents. In between is the Skagerrak with deep waters of up to 1,000m and treacherous bays on Jutland's coast, such as the Jammerbucht. To the delight of the sailors, the latter lived up less to its name “Ailing Bay” than in stormy years.

The record for the German longdistance queen will be more than a quarter of a century old at the upcoming edition of the Pantaenius Rund Skagen 2026. The fabulous 43 hours and 46 minutes for the legendary horseshoe-shaped course from Helgoland around Jutland and to Kiel, in which UCA, owned by the German Employers Federation president Dr Klaus Murmann and helmed by Walter Meier-Kothe, ploughed through the North and Baltic Seas after the turn of the millennium in 2000, has been unbeatable for so long. The record could not be beaten this year either.

‘We are a little proud that we are still defending the record. It's a shame that Klaus Murmann cannot experience this anymore,’ said Walter Meier-Kothe, who once again watched the sailing marathon, which is held every two years, closely from land. In his youth a multiple German long-distance kayak champion, later an internationally successful sailor and world-renowned Baltic representative in Germany, Walter Meier-Kothe knows all the tricks of the trade. He saw what the Rafale crew also knew early on: ‘This time they had a long beat past Hanstholm on the North Sea side. That cost them the opportunity to set the record. We were the fastest back then.’

Above: spectacular evening light during the Glück Early Bird Series sundowner race from Cuxhaven at the entrance of the Elbe to Helgoland for the ORC division.

However, the record-breaking journey in the year after the turn of the millennium was no walk in the park, says Walter Meier-Kothe: ‘We also put up a good fight! We had a really good crew together. Christopher Paschke was the navigator. Our bowman was at the mast in a lot of wind and took the halyard down to set the spinnaker. These are things that can cost a lot of time – or they work perfectly. Just steering the boat down the waves at night was a real challenge in the strong winds. The whole crew worked excellently.’

Although Henri de Bokay's crew on the fast Elliott 52ss Rafale also had the manpower and what it takes to set a record this year, the long beat towards the end of the first half of the North Sea part of Pantaenius Rund Skagen instead of the required reaching conditions prevented a new record despite a furious final push:

‘We are still super happy. We had already suspected at the beginning that the record would not be achieved. The 13-hour upwind passage from Hanstholm to Skagen didn't help. But in ideal weather conditions, the boat would definitely be able to break the record. Under her former name Outsider, she had already come close once with Tilmar Hansen, Bo Teichmann and crew…’

This year Rafale reached the finish line after 47 hours, 44 minutes and eight seconds. The crew led by skipper Malte Päsler and navigator Robin Zinkmann was three hours, 58 minutes and eight seconds short of the record. The best offshore crews will continue to bite their teeth out at this record.

This classic German offshore race, which is held every two years and has been strongly supported and jointly shaped by the yacht insurance specialist Pantaenius since 1994, is likely to attract more fast racers like Rafale to the starting line again in 2026.

Her formidable performance this year earned Rafale the prize for the best boat of the Pantaenius Rund Skagen based on ORC corrected time in the overall rakings. The coveted Skagen Prize is a bronze sculpture of an ancient Viking ship created by sculptor Herrmann Noack. The well-known Berlin artist who among many achievements became famous for his recreation of the Quadriga on the Brandenburg Gate, is also well known as joint winner of the Admiral's Cup in 1983. At the time his Sabina formed a successful team with Willi Illbruck's Pinta and Tilmar Hansen's Outsider for the second of a total of four German Admiral's Cup victories between 1973 and 1993.

Above: Helgoland, the Red Rock as it’s called, has been hosting North Sea Week for over 100 years

Before this ultimate test of the North Sea Week, crews on more than 100 yachts had already enjoyed the Nordseewoche sailing festival in 14 very different feeder races and beautiful racing around the Red North Sea Rock. The best offshore crews competed for titles and top placings in two classes at the International German Offshore Championship: In ORC A, the Rafale crew competing for the Club Seglerhaus am Wannsee and the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein in Hamburg won the combined score of the results in the classic Capitell-Cup Round Heligoland and the Pantaenius Rund Skagen. Dirk Clasen's Humphreys 39 Gingko sailed to silver ahead of Gerhard Clausen's Maxi Dolphin 75 Calypso. Daniel Baum's beautiful one-off Tison 38 Elida narrowly missed out on the championship podium after a 10th place in the Round Helgoland race despite a strong second place in the Pantaenius Round Skagen as fourth boat.

In ORC Group B the two 2022 Doublehanded World Champions Jonas Hallberg and Till Barth, together with Luca Leidholdt and Jannis Holthusen on the fast JPK 10.30 Hinden, sailed straight to the title in their first participation in an International German Championship. Kai Greten's one-ton quintet on the aged Oromocto took second ahead of Jan Müggenburg's Swan 371 La Diana. The winning yachts also demonstrated the wide range of ORC boats, which, depending on performance and conditions, showed that the formula does not just create one-sided chances of winning.

This early summer edition of the North Sea Week was painted by a mostly blue sky, a few handfuls of white fair weather clouds and predominantly light to medium winds. More than 1,000 sailors enjoyed a picture-book edition of the North Sea Week this year. First held in 1932, it was like a summer fairytale with Caribbean flair in the far north. ‘We had booked sunshine for the North Sea Week – and got it,’ summarised Jonas Hallberg from the Kiel Yacht Club.

The North Sea Festival with Baltic Sea finale kicked off with races from Wedel, Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Hooksiel and from Hallig Hooge. With the Garmin Cup from Wedel to Cuxhaven, the Glück Early Bird series including night-time ‘sundowner fun’ on the Helgoland course, lots of regatta fun around the Red Rock in the exciting North Sea area of German Bight and the Pantaenius Rund Skagen finale, the North Sea Week experienced a memorable Whitsun festival under sails two years after its 100th anniversary. Top sailors of international calibre, dedicated regatta amateurs and family crews enjoyed it together. However, at the end of the blissful days, the almost perfectly happy sports director Albert Schweizer still had one wish: ‘We would like to see more international participation in the future. We are convinced that we can revive the golden multinational heyday of the North Sea Week of the 1980s and 1990s.’

After a total of 15 races, Marcus Boehlich, head of North Sea Week Organisation, who led a dedicated team of 50 volunteers, summed up the event as sunny as the weather itself: ‘The atmosphere on Heligoland was unbelievably good! We had pure sunshine with great sailing conditions. Those who took part in this week will report back home. And those who tell the story as experienced will bring at least 10 new sailors with them next year. Then it’ll get really crowded on the Red Rock.’

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