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2 January 2025


Happy New Year, SOLers all, and, here, without further ado is an early outline for your sailonline.org racing programme 2025, and as always the title of SuperSOLer will be determined by the best 42 results from the usual four annual series: the Sprint Championship, the All-Round Championship, the Ocean Championship, and the TIMED Championship. Click on the buttons to discover more about these always fiercely contested annual contests.

In previous years we have raced circumnavigational series around Australia regularly and North America a few times, and across the many seas of Asia also, but Africa has been less explored. So, this year we will explore ‘Africa by Sea’, finishing with a transit of the Suez Canal, but, as there will be two discards, it can be ‘chickened out of’.

It is arguable that our long-standing Sprint Series, featuring short races of just a few hours, does not give enough ‘bang for our high-resolution bucks’ from our unique wrfems weather, so this year, additionally to the Sprints, we will race a hires series of races of 24 hours duration - the ‘Red Eye’ - which to win may require a certain amount of sleep management.

In 2016 we introduced our version of the DN ice yacht to an unsuspecting online sailing public. On good ice and in good wind it skates at up to 50 knots, tacking and gybing at will without performance loss. Racers loved it, so much so, that every northern hemisphere winter since we have organized a four-race series. In 2025 we will again host an Ice Series, but straddling the entire year, which means trips to the southern Andes and the Himalayas will be required.

Apart and entirely different to the DN, we have one other highly unusual craft in our boathouse. Although it floats in a fluid, it is not a boat either, but a balloon buoyed by the air, and this year, in response to public demand, we will race our SOL Balloon in a proper series. ‘Sinbad by Balloon’ will, like his seven online voyages of three years ago, take you to the four corners of the Indian Ocean.

In recent years, and in years gone by as well, within our Ocean Championships, we have also raced a Round the World (RTW) series, and we will do so again in 2025, but this year it will be a RWW 'Round Our Water World' eight-race series, in other words races that, again responding to demand, will avoid land as much as possible, by going from lonely island to lonely island à la Kevin Costner in the eponymous epic movie, in a mixed bag of ocean greyhounds.

     

The other four ocean races will be: 1/ a race from Cape Horn to Sables d'Olonne in a tuned-up foiling IMOCA 60, which hopefully will be able to match this year's Vendee fleet on their way home up the Atlantic, 2/ a race from Valparaiso to San Francisco inspired by Isabel Allende's terrific read 'Daughter of Fortune' , 3/ a second literature-inspired race from Cape Town to Java (lesser-known 'Mountains More Ancient' by Isna Marifa about the indentured Cape Malays of the 18th C), and of course 4/ our great and festive annual Christmas to Christmas race, back E to W.

There will be one other ocean race, which because of its great length in a comparatively slow yacht, to best match the real-life competitors we will be racing against, will not count towards the Ocean Championships; the Melbourne Osaka Cup .

Finally, as always, we will be partnering with numerous real-life race organizations and many of these partnerships will be in the form of short series. Click on any of the buttons below for further details about any of these.



       

       

Fair winds from SOL to all!

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Races

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Current Races:

Cross the Convergence 2026 - Sao Tomé to Tristan

The fifth race of our series of ocean voyages across the World’s convergence zones takes us back south down the Atlantic from Sao Tomé on the Equator to Tristan da Cunha on the edge of the Roaring Forties. It’s 2500nm; in your path the Benguela winds and current along the south west African coast, and behind that the St Helena High stretching halfway to South America. So, mind where you go in your Volvo OD65 version 3 (based on sampled real-life race data by kroppyer)!
Race #1985
INFOby brainaid.de
Volvo OD65v3 PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: CCZ - SYC
Race starts: Jul 03rd 18:00 Registration Open!
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New Ice Age 2026 - Neumayer Station to Scott Base


For a second-half of long-distance ice-boating, we take our DNs to Antarctica for a circumnavigation of that continent in two legs clockwise, in harmony with the prevailing winds (such as there are), beginning with a race from Germany’s Neumayer Station to New Zealand’s Scott Base. It’s about 3500nm, which, if there’s wind at all, should, well-wrapped in your DN-cockpits, not take you much more than five days. And remember: charts down here are unreliable – what is land and what is ice?!
Race #1970
INFOby brainaid.de
DN PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: NIA - SYC
Race starts: Jul 02nd 07:00 Registration Open!
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Tall Ships 2026 - Aarhus to Harlingen


Welcome to the first of four virtual Tall Ships Races in European waters which are concurrently being organized in-real-life by Sail Training International . The course for this first race is from Aarhus in Denmark, through the Skaggerak and down the North Sea to Friesland’s Harlingen – a proper tall ship training adventure of circa 450nm, which online this year you will race in Sailonline’s classic Clipper 240.
NOTE: Starts and Finishes in tall ships racing are always offshore to avoid conflict with shipping and shipping lanes; online and real-life may not match exactly.
Race #1992
INFO by brainaid.de
Clipper 240 PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: TSI - SUPBUD - SYC
Race starts: Jun 27th 16:00 Registration Open!
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Viareggio Bastia Viareggio 2026

Our sixth race of nine to celebrate all things Mediterranean - fickle winds, history and olive oil - was planned to be our third buddy-up with another incredible Italian event, the Viareggio Bastia Viareggio (or BVR for short). Unfortunately, in-real-life the BVR has been cancelled this year. But online we shall race it never the less. It’s a quickie – a 160nm roundtrip there-and-back in classic Class 40. Have fun, and if you’re planning a BBQ, piccola isola Capraia halfway across is simply lovely!
Race #2041
INFO by brainaid.de
Class 40 PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: MED - SUPBUD - SYC
RACE CLOSE: Sunday,
July 5 at 2300 UTC.
Race starts: Jun 24th 12:00 Registration Closed

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Shetland Race 2026 - Leg 2


After the thrill of the first leg, we don't linger long in Lerwick, Shetland. Following brief but joyous celebrations, it's time to set sail back across the North Sea to Bergen, Norway, for the gripping second leg of the Shetland Race 2026!

Covering another unpredictable 190 nautical miles, tactical depth and fierce competition await. This year, we take the helm of the Linjett 33. Designed by Mats Gustavsson in 1994 for Sweden's historic Rosättra Båtvarv, this sturdy, quality cruiser-racer has been a Sailonline favourite in northern waters since 2010. Whether you are chasing victory or savoring the voyage, hoist your sails and let the journey home begin!
Race #2040
INFO by brainaid.de
Linjett 33 PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking:
SHE - RED - SUPBUD - SYC
RACE CLOSE: Tuesday,
June 30 at 2300 UTC.
Race starts: Jun 20th 16:00 Registration Closed
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Newport Bermuda Race 2026


The 636-mile Newport Bermuda Race is one of the oldest regularly scheduled ocean races, and with the Fastnet and the Sydney Hobart Race, it is one of the three great classic races of the yachting world. First raced in 1906, now in its 54th biennial, the Race can again also be participated in online. In real life, the race is open to entry in four different division – Double-Handed, St. David's Lighthouse, Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, and Finisterre Division – which in the past we have also offered online. This year, however, our online race will be all-in one-design in silky swift Club Swan 50 yachts, so that your results can count towards SOL’s SUPerBUDdy title, whilst hopefully still giving you a chance of overall line honours against the fastest yachts of the real-life Gibbs Hill Division, especially if you can find some forecast winds that don’t quite work out that way on the real water!
Race #2038
INFOby brainaid.de
Club Swan 50 PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: SUPBUD - SYC
RACE CLOSE: Wednesday,
July 1 at 2300 UTC.
Race starts: Jun 19th 17:05 Registration Closed
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Bluefin Tuna - Mexico Gulf to North Sea 2026

Join us and follow the Bluefin Tuna, as they migrate from their spawning grounds in the Gulf of Mexico to their feeding grounds in the North Sea off the coast of Norway. This 4300 nm race is part of our Ocean Championship and the final race of OCQ2 2026, and also the second leg of our Migration series. We will be sailing in our Gunboat 90. Race #2035
INFO by brainaid.de
Gunboat 90 PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: OCQ2 - MIG - OCCH - SYC
RACE CLOSE: Saturday,
July 4 at 2300 UTC.
Race starts: Jun 08th 11:00 Registration Closed
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