Channel hopping
Essential monthly highlights from the world of online sailing channels with Kass Schmitt
Fifteen years ago I became hooked on solo ocean racing in large part thanks to a website called Blogstar, which was set up by Marco Nannini to aggregate in real-time the blog posts of the 31 skippers (including himself) who competed in the 2009 Original Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race. I went to the start in Plymouth to wave off my friend Oscar Mead, whose refit I had witnessed from our project boat next to his in a shed in Cowes the previous winter.
I then eagerly consumed every post by Oscar and the other 30 competitors, many of whom would become friends and mentors on my own OSTAR journey. In particular, I was inspired by the beautifully written accounts of Pip Hildesley (née Hare) who, despite fracturing a rib and stopping in Ireland to repair damage to her standing rigging, managed a respectable mid-fleet finish before going on, as we all know, to ever greater ocean racing achievements.
Today the rules of most major French short-handed races require skippers to provide a certain number of audio and video updates from the racecourse. But with few exceptions, these hundreds of videos fail to move me, or very few others, if the viewing stats are to be believed.
And so it was very exciting, not j
