The Transatlantic Race is one of the oldest and most prestigious passages in offshore sailing — organised by the New York Yacht Club and the Royal Ocean Racing Club, with support from the Royal Yacht Squadron and the Storm Trysail Club. The 32nd edition started on June 18, 2025, from Newport, Rhode Island, with a fleet of eleven boats heading east across the North Atlantic towards Cowes, England. Approximately 3,000 miles of open ocean, Gulf Stream currents, ice exclusion zones, and weather systems that change faster than any forecast can keep up with.
VO65 Sisi lined up as the second-highest rated IRC boat in the fleet — the only VO65 on the start line, racing against Christian Zugel's Volvo 70 Tschüss 2, a Swan 80, a Marten 49, and everything in between. What followed was one of the fastest transatlantic crossings we've ever done: 8 days, 21 hours, 56 minutes and 17 seconds for 3,208 miles sailed — an average speed of 15 knots across the full distance. Second across the line, behind only the Volvo 70 and her fully professional crew. Numbers that still don't feel real when you read them back.
This is the story of that crossing — in four parts.
The Transatlantic Race doesn't start with a gun — it starts with a cocktail. The New York Yacht Club at Harbour Court in Newport is one of the most iconic clubhouses in sailing, and the farewell reception on its lawns is the kind of moment that reminds you what this sport can be at its best: crews from across the fleet, drinks on the grass overlooking Narragansett Bay, and the quiet knowledge that in a few hours, all of this will be replaced by open ocean.
The start itself was slow. Light winds off the Rhode Island coast, the fleet spreading out, Tschüss 2 pulling ahead early with her longer waterline and fully professional crew. For the first twenty hours, the Atlantic felt patient — almost polite. But offshore racing is never decided on day one.
Experience a transatlantic race.
Instant fun vs. effortful fun — and why the best experiences are the ones you have to earn.
There are two kinds of fun. The first is instant — you show up, it's enjoyable, you go home. The second is effortful — uncomfortable in the moment, sometimes miserable, and only recognisable as fun when you look back at it. Crossing the North Atlantic on a VO65 is the second kind.
After the slow start, something shifted. Like an osmosis effect, the further we got from the American coast, the faster we went. The Gulf Stream delivered — at one point we picked up over three knots of current, sea temperature dropping from 25°C to under 8°C in a matter of hours. The boat found its rhythm. The crew found its rhythm. Day after day, the average speed climbed. What started as a patient crawl off Newport turned into a sustained high-speed passage across the North Atlantic — the kind of sailing you can't simulate and can't shortcut. You just have to be there, on the water, earning every mile.
Eating, sleeping, and the things nobody talks about.
Life on a VO65 at 15+ knots in the North Atlantic is not comfortable. It's loud — the hull is a carbon fibre drum and every wave hits like a percussion section. It's wet — spray finds every gap in your gear, and dry clothes become a memory by day two. And it's relentless — three-hour watches, hand-steering because there's no autopilot, then back to a bunk that adjusts with the heel angle but never quite adjusts enough.
You eat freeze-dried food from a bag. You sleep in shifts with earplugs and a prayer. And you use a carbon fibre toilet that swivels on its axis and has broken the dignity of every sailor who has ever sat on it. None of this sounds appealing. All of it is part of why the experience stays with you. The discomfort strips everything back — your routine, your expectations, your sense of what you need — until all that's left is the boat, the crew, and the ocean. That's when the North Atlantic becomes something extraordinary.
Day 8. The Celtic Sea.
After eight days of open ocean, England appears — not dramatically, not suddenly, just a slow thickening of the horizon south of Ireland that eventually becomes land. The Celtic Sea. The Western Approaches. And then the English Channel, busy with shipping, surprisingly green after days of nothing but grey and blue.
A historic finish line off the Royal Ocean Racing Club in Cowes.
The finish line sits off the Royal Ocean Racing Club in Cowes — one of the most historic finish lines in offshore racing. VO65 Sisi crossed it after 8 days 21 hours 56 Minutes and 17 Seconds, second boat to finish in the entire fleet, behind only the Volvo 70 Tschüss 2. The welcome reception at the RORC Clubhouse in Cowes was the perfect counterpoint to eight days of freeze-dried food and carbon fibre bunks — warm, civilised, and surrounded by people who had just done the same impossible thing across the same impossible ocean.
3,208 miles. The North Atlantic at its most raw and its most beautiful. A crew that kept the speed up when it mattered and each other going when it didn't. And the quiet realisation, sitting in the RORC with a glass in hand, that this is something every sailor should experience at least once — the sheer, ridiculous, unforgettable power of crossing an ocean at full speed on a boat that was built for exactly that.
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