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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:

Magical Mediterranean 2026 - Benghazi to Korcula

We return to Antiquity’s Middle Sea for a seventh celebration of all things Mediterranean - fickle winds, history and olive oil. This time we will sail from ancient Benghazi, whence once grain shipped continuously to feed Rome’s urban masses, to the medieval Venetian thalassocracy’s port of Korcula, birthplace of Marco Polo; 700nm in classy Club Swan 50s!
Race #1978
INFO by brainaid.de
Club Swan 50 PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: MED - SYC
Race starts: Jul 27th 15:00 Registration Open!

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Red Eye 2026 - Georgian Bay

Welcome to the sensational scenic Georgian Bay of northern Lake Huron, the first area of the Great Lakes to be visited by Europeans in 1615, so former SOLer A2R informed us when he designed this geometrically tortuous course of 317nm criss-cross through its island maze. Originally known as Lake Manitoulin, in 1822 the bay was renamed after King George IV after his succession to the throne. This time we’ll take the very flashy Fareast 31R, which hopefully should keep you wide awake!
Race #2051
INFOby brainaid.de
Fareast 31R PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: RED - SYC
Race starts: Jul 26th 08:00 Registration Open!
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Tall Ships 2026 - Stavanger to Aalborg


Welcome to the fourth of four virtual Tall Ships Races in European waters which are concurrently being organized in-real-life by Sail Training International . This fourth race is from Stavanger in Norway into the Skaggerak to a finish off Denmark’s Aalborg and perhaps an Aquavit to toast the adventure afterwards – a final circa 250nm 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 #1995
INFO by brainaid.de
Clipper 240 PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: TSI - SUPBUD - SYC
Race starts: Jul 25th 16:00 Registration Open!
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Chinook Salmon - Canada to Andreanovs


A year after spawning in the upper reaches of the rivers of British Columbia, Chinook Salmon develop the age-old urge, so familiar to SOLers, to go to sea, heading for different parts of the northern Pacific Ocean. This race catches up with a particular school with an instinctive memory for the Andreanov Islands far west on the Aleutian Islands chain, as they depart the Salian Sea between Vancouver Island and the San Juans. It’s 2200nm and we’re taking the 60ft Trimaran, in the hope we can keep up!
Race #2048
INFOby brainaid.de
60ft Trimaran PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: MIG - SYC
Race starts: Jul 21st 11:00 Registration Open!
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Juventud TIMED Race 2026

Welcome to Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth), Cuba’s second largest island after mainland Cuba. Known as a haven for pirates, the island was the inspiration for novels “Treasure Island” and “Peter Pan”. The circa 120nm course runs clockwise around the island.
This is a TIMEDrace so you may RE-REGISTER HEREto try again after finishing a run. You will have two weeks to test your skill and decision making after the race opens.
Race #2049
INFOby brainaid.de
The boat for this race is the sporty Mini 6.5p Foil PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking:
TRQ3 - TRCH - SYC
RACE CLOSE: Saturday,
1 August at 23:00 UTC
Race starts: Jul 19th 12:00 Registration Open!
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Alaska to Easter Island 2026

Welcome to yet another all-new series. The initial leg of the RNW (Round the New World), Alaska to Easter Island, also part of our Ocean Championship. The first race of OCQ3 2026. This race will be sailed in our revised 'version 2' Imoca 60 Foil. Race #2042
INFO by brainaid.de
Imoca 60 Foil v2 PARTICULARS
WX Updates:
0430 / 1030 / 1630 / 2230
Ranking: OCQ3 - RNW - OCCH - SYC
RACE CLOSE: Saturday,
August 1 at 2300 UTC.
Race starts: Jul 06th 11:00 Registration Closed
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