Are you up to the challenge of racing, single-handed or double-handed 3000 miles across the North Atlantic?
In 2021 the Royal Western Yacht Club of England, based in Plymouth, will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of its introduction of singlehanded trans-oceanic racing to the world, and the 60 years since then during which it nurtured and developed short-handed oceanic racing. The highlight of the Club’s celebrations will be the running of the 16th OSTAR (the anniversary edition) and 7th edition of the TWOSTAR starting on 9 May.
The first trans-Atlantic race, conceived in 1960 by ‘cockleshell hero’ Blondie Hasler and organised by the RWYC, sailed from Plymouth to New York and was won by the intrepid yachtsman Sir Francis Chichester. It was an instant success and despite strong opposition from the sailing establishment saw the birth of singlehanded racing throughout the world. Since then the RWYC has run the OSTAR (the Original Singlehanded TransAtlantic Race) every four years from Plymouth to Newport. It was later joined by a sister event, the Twohanded TransAtlantic Race (which quickly became known as the TWOSTAR), when the demand grew for a twohanded race.
The OSTAR and TWOSTAR have been the proving ground for many internationally famous yachtsmen and women but the races have always remained true to Hasler’s vision – a Corinthian event in which seamanship and the development of new techniques and equipment are paramount. A race against the ocean as much as against other boats. The races are open to all: aspiring sponsored professionals in their highly tuned machines out to break records, family skippers in cruisers/racers intending to complete the Everest of sailing, and the ‘more experienced’ skippers in their blue-water boats just to get there again (preferably ahead of their rivals). The races themselves also promise to be exciting, though hopefully not quite as exciting as the last event in 2017. A traditionally warm welcome awaits the finishers at the Newport Yacht Club.
2020 is also an important year for Plymouth. ‘Britain’s Ocean City’ will be celebrating yet another transatlantic sailing – that of the Mayflower from Plymouth, England to Plymouth, New England – in the ‘Mayflower 400’ year-long event.
The RWYC welcomes applications for entry to the 2021 OSTAR and TWOSTAR.