History & Heritage
The races, boats and people behind the sport
Offshore racing has always been shaped by its rules, its boats and a handful of strong characters. To understand where the sport is going, it helps to know how it got here.
This section tells that story. It follows the rating rules from the IOR era, when yachts were designed to exploit the rule as much as to sail fast, through to the rules and boats that came after. It looks at the yachts that broke the rules and the ones that changed them.
It also looks at the people. John Illingworth invented races that are still sailed today. One piece follows two boats through that story: Morning Cloud, and Morning After, the S&S 34 I rebuilt and race.
My own part in that history is small but long. I sailed my first RORC race in 1971, aged eleven, aboard Volunteer, the RNVR Sailing Club's S&S 34, with my father as skipper. I was mast man in the Victory squad for the 1982 and 1983 America's Cup campaigns, and Rear Commodore of the RORC from 2017 to 2020.
History is not nostalgia. Most arguments in offshore racing today, about ratings, crew numbers and who gets to win, have been had before. It is worth knowing how they ended.
The articles are listed below, newest first. Explore the other subjects in the FirstShift article library, or read the latest articles.
