The teams competing in the Louis Vuitton tour took time away from racing sailboats in Dubai last week to, well, to race sailboats in Dubai.  Dhow races are a popular event in the area, at least for the locals.  We are told that it's something of a restricted sport for others, and in fact this event marked the first time foreigners were allowed to actively participate in the racing.  In this case, each team was assigned a boat, but they raced with the assistance of six experienced Dubai dhow sailors as crew on each craft.

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The concepts of "modern" and "cutting edge" are themselves neither modern nor cutting edge.  One can imagine a time when a bunch of old smelters must have laughed at the young "fool" who first added a bit of tin to his copper and made bronze.  There has always been an avant garde ridiculed by the establishment, and boat design is no exception.  Having better, faster, stronger boats obviously meant that a community or civilization had military, trade and fishing advantages.  Thus, the drive to produce such advances has existed, most likely, since just after the first boat floated someone across a pond or river.  The ship and yacht designs which fail are the butts of jokes.  Those that succeed, however - those become legend.

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The rumors we began hearing last week are true:  After being held in captivity for over a year in Somalia, the pirates have finally released Rachel and Paul Chandler.  The Chandlers appear to be in good health and good spirits, though the impact which being held for so long has had on the British couple was obvious in their weight loss and weary smiles.  The core of their responses to media was summed up in five simple words:  "We're happy to be alive!"

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For some, the idea of going out on a small boat is petrifying.  Invite such a person sailing, and from their reactions you might think you had offered to take them for a stroll on the face of the Sun.  "Go out on the ocean in that tiny thing?  For FUN?  Are you out of your minds?"  Which is not an unreasonable question when you look at things objectively.  After all, is it rational to want to set out to sea in small boats just for the hell of it, or are w

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It's not generally surprising when the biggest, fastest yacht is the first across the finish line in a race. However, in the case of Groupama 3 and the Route du Rhum, earning line honors signifies something which carries a bit more impact.

• Groupama 3

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Last week, YachtPals received word of a yacht being captured by pirates near Somalia, but the few details available to us from yachties, the press, and our contacts in Africa and the Seychelles were all conflicting.  Some reported that the yacht was near the Seychelles when it was captured, others that it was off the coast of Somalia, and still others put it off of the Kenyan coast.  Over the weekend, there were additional reports that there had been a fire-fight, and that one of the hostages from the yacht had been shot and killed.  Today, we received reliable confirmation of the bad news, and some good news as well.  Here is what we currently believe to be the situation:

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What do you do if you want to take the record-holding fastest boat around the world - which usually has 10 crew - and race it across an entire Ocean by yourself? You adapt, that's what you do. In this case it's YachtPal Franck Cammas sailing the magnificent Groupama 3, the race is the Route de Rhum, and the adaptation is to run the massive winches by bicycle power. Route de Rhum meets Tour de France? Well, perhaps something like that.

• Groupama 3

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Everyone who has scraped barnacles off their propellers, please raise your hand.  Freshwater boaters, outboard- and trailer-boaters, kindly step to the back and help yourself to the refreshments.  You can all be smug with your lack of marine growth and bounty of zinc anodes - go ahead and snicker.  What's a little ridicule to those of us who get bloody knuckles every year?  After all, we who scrape are made of tougher stuff.  Well, tougher than almost anything except barnacles.

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France - In what appears to be a who's who list torn from the pages of the record books, the fastest sailors around the world have now crossed the start line of that all out solo sprint across the Atlantic known as the Route du Rhum.  Francis Joyon, the fastest man to sail solo around the world is there on his huge trimaran IDEC, and Franck Cammas, the man who recently skippered the multihull Groupama 3 around the planet to earn the much coveted Jules Verne (fastest boat around the world) trophy, are just two of this star studded fleet.  Meeting them on the course are Michel Desjoyeaux, the fastest solo sailor around the world in a monohull sailboat, and Thomas Coville, who holds numerous singlehanded sailing records himself on

• Groupama 3

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Luderitz, Namibia - The fastest keep getting faster, and the "barriers" are falling like dominos in the world of speed sailing.  Rob Douglas of Boston USA, the man who brought kite-boarding into the speed sailing arena in 2008 with a record run of almost 50 knots, has reclaimed the crown in Namibia.  In wind speeds of 45 knots, Douglas has smashed the double-nickel barrier by averaging a top speed of 55.65 knots over 500 meters.  The fastest person under sail* is an American.

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