So You Think You Can Race? How Any Crew Can Join the Action

The racing circuit isn’t only reserved for rock stars. Here’s everything you need to know to get into the game.

Forget the Olympics and the America’s Cup. Never mind the ClubSwan 125 Skorpios. You just don’t need a hundred grand of North 3Di Raw sails, titanium deck fittings and a gold medal to race a yacht. What you need is people with the right attitude and an open mind. And that means there is room for crew of all sorts in a race team.

“We’re a mixed bag — not everyone has an Olympic sailing model,” says Svea captain Paul “PK” Kelly when I ask him about the crew on his achingly beautiful 143ft J Class. “We have university students, employees from London and two girls on the boat. You don’t have to have a boat full of rock stars.”

Svea is an interesting example of how to get a race crew together. On the one hand, she is a rarified race boat — one of the original J Class designs that was unearthed and built in the modern era as part of the renaissance of the fleet. She was drawn in 1937 to contest the America’s Cup for Sweden, but is today run on a unique blend of enthusiasm and admiration, not high-octane racing machismo. 

“When we started, we only had four people forward of the pit who had ever sailed a J before and the rest of them hadn’t sailed anything bigger than 60ft,” says race manager Tim Powell. “But they all had a fantastic attitude.” 

His job was to assemble the race crew and support team who make Svea’s racing campaign possible. “A lot of our team spirit comes from the Swedish crew,” he says. “They’re maybe not your well-known sailors on the circuit, but they have a very strong camaraderie that envelops everyone else on the boat.”

With a 40-strong team, Svea simply can’t run on a purely Corinthian basis. You need key people in the key positions: running backstays, tactician, navigator, mainsheet, pit and bow. And some of these are among the best in the business. “On a J Class, the front of the boat is where it all happens — it can go horribly wrong or fantastically well,” Tim adds. “There’s a 60ft spinnaker pole, huge sails and jockey poles. From the pit forward, there are 22 people wrestling big heavy stuff around, so an experienced bowman is critical and the pit boss, Jens Dolmer, is like the conductor to the orchestra.”

"You don’t need a hundred grand of North 3Di Raw sails, titanium deck fittings and a gold medal to race a yacht"

Tim contacted racing titan Bouwe Bekking to start building the team. Most captains have their own little black book with the names and numbers of all the crew contacts they’ve built up over the years, as James Harper of 112ft Dykstra Aurelius recounts. “You build up a list of friends and contacts and if one of those guys isn’t available, they always know at least three other people to call,” he says. “I’ve also found some great crew through working with some of the great contractors in the industry — sail-makers, riggers and so on.”

Tim says it is not necessarily the length of the CV that counts. “The day starts two hours before dock-off and finishes two hours after getting back. You need such a strong team spirit and such a work ethic, because these boats are just incredibly physical ­— even to pack up at the end of the day. Jibs weigh 250kg [550lb] and spinnakers 150kg. If everyone is working together, we get things done quickly and efficiently. As soon as someone starts looking at their phone on the dock while everyone else is working, it’s not a good look.”

Horses for courses

Of course, there are lots of different races — from the rock- and island-strewn waters of St Barths and the Ibiza JoySail to the long offshore courses of the RORC Caribbean 600. The crew requirements will depend as much on what the owner wants to achieve, and the events entered, as on the boat itself. It is the captain’s first task to balance these three things.

“It could just be a case of bringing in the minimum extras to make it safe —someone aware of the racing rules of sailing,” says Kate Branagh, organizer of the Superyacht Cup Palma. “We have the Corinthian class with no spinnakers, which was very popular in St Barths this year. Most events also have a white sail class, which can pull in boats that wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

She says the field during a typical event breaks down into one third bent on victory, one third keen to race within the parameters of the boat, and a final third who treat it as a regular sail with a few extra hands aboard. “There is none of this getting rid of every ounce on the boat — the rating takes into account four anchors, a wine cellar and grand piano, if that’s what you’ve got.”

Do it, then do it again

It’s always tempting to believe that the best crew climb aboard and know exactly what to do, but that’s simply not true. Furthermore, anyone who thinks they come race-ready is probably cut from the wrong cloth to fit into a team environment. “We have some of the best sailors in the world on the boat, but they don’t go around telling everyone that,” says captain Paul of Svea. “The way they handle themselves shows everyone that and it shows the level of respect for everyone else on the boat. The younger ones are being brought up to a much higher level for this respect and trust.”

It follows that race practice is crucial. As a pure racing campaign, Svea aims to build in 10 days of practice at the start of every season. But time is a luxury not every crew enjoys. The 110ft Baltic Yacht Zemi is captained by James Harper, and he paints a different picture.

“The pit boss is like the conductor to an orchestra”

“We had four professional race crew on board with another six crew members joining the six permanent crew, plus up to six guests and two owners,” he says. “We did the Antigua Superyacht Challenge after training twice, followed by another two training days in advance of the Bucket.”

It all depends on the degree of involvement from the owner, but captain Harry Blazeby on Aurelius says he splits the crew into two for pre-race practice. “The ‘boat crew’ who are staying on board consist of the full-time and paid race crew, then the ‘shore crew’ is the owner, his friends and everyone else. The boat crew tends to put in the extra hours in the mornings and evenings to make sure prep and break down is completed and everything is checked over before the next day of sailing.”

Getting race-ready

There’s barely a campaign that Bouwe Bekking hasn’t connected with. He recently stepped aboard Nilaya, the astonishing new 154ft Royal Huisman sloop, which he helped sail across the Atlantic at pace before entering the Bucket. The crossing provided an excellent opportunity to tune the rig and sail plan before hitting the racecourse.

For the racing itself, there is a little more preparation required. The eight permanent crew swells to 22, and the boat has to be lightened by pumping out fresh water and all but the minimum fuel. One of the two anchors is removed, along with its chain. “The rest of the boat is there because the permanent crew stays aboard and part of the race crew as well, so all the bedding, tables and so on stays aboard,” says Bouwe.

Svea, on the other hand, requires two weeks to convert between cruising and racing mode. “The lazarette and forepeak are completely stripped out for racing, so there’s no weight in the overhangs,” says Paul. “To go cruising, there are all these metal frames that have to go back in, as well as engineering spares, hydraulic oil, engine oil, passarelle and boarding ladder. The tender goes in the front of the boat. Then we have to switch out all the sails. There are comfy cockpit chairs, beanbags and more.”

There’s no rocket science involved in building and maintaining a successful team, but it takes its cue from the very top. “Racing brings the crew together,” says Zemi captain James Harper. “We also have all meals with the owners, guests, race crew and regular crew so everyone gets to know each other, and that helped to get the crew to gel.”

Captain Tim on Svea concurs. “We always eat together and socialize together, and that comes down to the owners of the boat,” he says. “On some boats, they disappear and have dinner by themselves, while the team go off by themselves. But we run as a pack.”

Problems and solutions

The other key is a detailed debriefing after every race to discuss problems and identify solutions. It is also an opportunity to provide praise and positive feedback on performance. Everyone should feel able to speak up, regardless of position or experience. Some captains point to tensions between the permanent crew, whose job it is to keep the boat looking fantastic, and the race crew, who are brought in to push it hard and win. This is less of an issue on a race boat, which is designed to take the knocks. It is starker on cruising boats, such as Aurelius. “Of course we want to finish first, but first you must finish,” says captain Harry.

Once a race crew has developed, gelled and proved itself, the final challenge is to keep it together. And you can’t act too quickly on this, according to Harry. “As soon as one regatta ends, we are already talking about the next year’s edition with the same crew and getting them locked in,” he says. “Keeping the same crew together helps enormously with prep when you’re only doing two regattas a year with limited practice days.”

It is a testament to the team on Svea that only two crew have changed during the past three seasons of campaigning. “It’s absolutely brilliant,” says captain Paul. “The key to sailing any big boat with big crew is continuity. The right person for the right job — if you’re switching people out in key roles, it puts you on the back foot straight away.”