Doublehanded Worlds in Cowes

Kate Cope, the director of the UK Doublehanded Series, explains the format of the upcoming Doublehanded Offshore World Championships

In September 2024 the first edition of the Offshore Doublehanded World Championships was held in Lorient, France. It attracted 22 mixed male/ female teams from 16 nations and five continents. The line up of AUS, BEL, CAN, ESP, FRA, GBR. GER, GRE, IND, JAP, NED, NZL, SWE, TUR, URU, USA had some welcome new faces joining the expected entries from established offshore nations and a wide range of competitor ages.

The sailors were provided with matched Sun Fast 30 OD boats supplied by Cap Regatta rather than the usual offshore race setup where you bring your own boat. The boats were fully prepared for racing with a lot of effort to ensure they and the sails were absolutely equalised before each race. As an example of the level of detail of the equalisation, after a small unsolvable problem was found on one boat this problem was re-created on the other boats so they were absolutely matched.

Offshore sailors usually spend a lot of time setting up their own boats so turning up and racing on a ready prepared boat was described by one competitor as like “trusting someone else to pack your parachute”.

‘The teams did a really great job and I’m very proud of them,’ says Foad Zahedi of Cap Regatta. ‘Most teams had not spent much time racing or training in this new design of boat. They trusted that their parachute was packed correctly. Everyone enjoyed the event and there were lots of smiles.’

I’ve spoken to a number of competitors since the event and they all said it was a well organised, fair competition and enjoyable. Weather can never be planned in advance and some very strong winds did cause race postponement, but there was time allowed in the schedule for all the races to be run.

The two heats were 10-16-hour offshore races up and down the coast from Lorient. The final race was 27 hours in all conditions from strong winds to flat calm. The results were very close, testament to the high skill level of the competitors, with the top five boats (GBR, FRA, BEL, FRA, URU) all finishing within 10 minutes.

This year’s Offshore Doublehanded World Championships will start on 22 September in Cowes, UK, hosted by the Royal Ocean Racing Club. More boats will be made available, allowing up to 28 different Member National Authorities (MNAs) to select teams to represent them. The vision is to continue to broaden the representation of nations and for doublehanded offshore racing to be supported by World Sailing as an Olympic event. The format has been submitted as a test event under the title “Sailing Marathon”. Cameras could be installed on the boats, giving 24-hour media coverage and there is the possibility of live videos from the competitors whilst racing. It’s hoped that the communications seen in the recent Vendée Globe show what’s possible and support an offshore racing bid.

The racing format this year will give more races to each team and more opportunity to qualify for the final, particularly important for the teams that have travelled a long distance to compete. There will be two heats of 14 boats of which the top five will go through to the final. The next seven boats from each heat will have another race where the top four boats will also qualify for the final. This gives most teams in the competition two races.

The other change this year is that the boats are much more available for training and racing prior to the event and some teams are already planning for this. The fleet of Sun Fast 30 ODs are available from Cap Regatta throughout 2025 with a large group expected to take part in the Rolex Fastnet Race.

If this has whetted your appetite for a challenge, or if you know someone who would like to take part, reach out to your own MNA to understand their plans. Each MNA is responsible for their own selection process and to recommend the team to represent their country.

Let’s make the Cowes event this summer fully representative to support the Olympic aspirations of doublehanded offshore sailing.

Click here for more information on the UK Doublehanded Series »