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Welcome to the Sailing World Podcast Series. To listen to any of the podcasts, click on the links below. You can also subscribe to the series on iTunes. Please send any comments on the series, including ideas on future events we should cover, to podcast@sailingworld.com.

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Feb. 16,
2010: Mitch Booth has been sailing and winning in catamarans for a long time. He has two Olympic medals and numerous world and national championships to his credit. Now he'd like to move upward, in terms of size, and race for the America's Cup. Not surprisingly, he'd like to the see sailing's biggest trophy make a permanent move to multihulls. Cynics who say the match-racing action won't be as good in blazing fast cats. Booth says, how do you know if you've never tried. He has and he thinks the results would be fantastic. This
Podcast is sponsored by Catch the Wind's new Racer's Edge
Device.

Feb. 12, 2010:"No matter how many Cups I do, the bows just seem to keep getting smaller." But on the bright side for BMW Oracle Racing bowman Brad Webb, he now has 3 bows to work on instead of one. Oh right, doesn't make his job any easier. Webb, who runs the point end (or is it ends) of the BMW Oracle Racing trimaran tell us about his role on the boat, what he hangs on to at 30 knots, and whether it'll be a relief to get back to normal sailing.
This Podcast is sponsored by Catch the Wind's new Racer's Edge Device.

Feb. 10, 2010: Not all mega multihulls ar restricted to less than 20 knots of breeze and waves smaller than the average man. However, just like the mega mutltihulls hoping to contest the 33rd America's Cup-should conditions ever allow-Franck Cammas' Groupama 3 prefers flat water. That's a big part of the job description for navigator Stan Honey. In this podcast, the much-sought-after navigator discusses sailing around the world, having the boat break at sea, how much sleep he really needs, and whether the America's Cup holds any interest for this veteran ocean racer.
This Podcast is sponsored by Catch the Wind's new Racer's Edge Device.
For the latest on Groupama's progress around the world, click here.

Feb. 3, 2010: For more than two years, syndicate head Stéphane Kandler has watched from the sidelines, with all the other potential America's Cup challengers, while Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing slug it out in the New York Courts. With the 33rd Cup about to be sailed and a potential resolution at hand, we ask Kandler about his vision for the future of the America's Cup, and his new Franco-German team, All4OneChallenge.
This Podcast is sponsored by Catch the Wind's new Racer's Edge Device.
For more on Kandler's challenge, click here.

Dec. 28, 2009: No one can win an Olympic medal in the women's 470 class alone. Few know this better than Molly Carapiet. She's currently the only American skipper in the top 25 in the world in this discipline. However, she's also in search of a partner for the last two and a half years of her second Olympic campaign. The road to an Olympic regatta is full of pitfalls and potholes. Carapiet is currently trying to find her way around a rather large one.

Dec. 21, 2009: The last Olympic classes regatta of 2009 produced fitting results for the U.S. Sailing Team AlphaGraphics, which sent a small contingent to Australia for Sail Melbourne and came home with silver medals in the Laser Radial, Men's 470 and Laser classes. That's good, says head coach Kenneth Andreasen, but there's lots of work still to be done. Among his goals is developing the fittest sailing team on the Olympic circuit. "Fitness is not [going to be] why we lose out on potential results," he says.

October 7, 2009: What it's like to pilot the most advanced catamaran every built? Like being a very small child on a very big horse, says Alinghi's Ed Baird. With his team's boat in the United Arab Emirates, and he soon to follow, the winning helmsman from the 32nd America's Cup talks about the proposed venue for the 33rd Cup the team's progress in developing the catamaran, and what it's like to sail such a magnificent and powerful boat.

August 10, 2009: As a world champion catamaran sailor, Olympian, and yacht designer of one of the fastest boats to ever sail around the world, Pete Melvin knows plenty about large multihulls. Which is, of course, why BMW Oracle Racing contracted him to help out with its multihull challenge for the 33rd America's Cup. Nonetheless, he offered some opinion and insight on the upcoming Deed of Gift match between BMW Oracle's trimaran and Alinghi's catamaran.

July 24, 2009: With his eyes firmly set on bettering the silver medal he won in 2008, Zach Railey took a huge step forward at the 2009 Finn Gold Cup, coming within just two points of winning one of the most regarded trophies in sailing. As he tells us in this exclusive podcast, second stings a bit, especially since he was in first going into the medal race. But there is a bright side. It makes him even hungrier for 2010, when the regatta will be held on home soil at the St. Francis YC, and beyond.

June 25, 2009: "Ken Read [at left, with the sunglasses on], you've just clinched second place in the 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race. Are you taking your furry friend to Disney World?" Actually, no. First, Read is sailing to St. Petersburg, Russia, then he's going home, to sleep. We caught up with Ken Read moments after he learned that Team Russia would not be starting the final leg and therefore his Puma Ocean Racing crew had all but clinched second in the grueling VOR. Was he excited? Yeah, you could say that.

June 16, 2009: The DVD and Blu-Ray editions of Morning Light hit stores today. Morning Light tells the story of 15 young sailors given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sail a top-flight race boat in the 2007 Transpac Race. They must learn to the myraid skills necessary to sail from Los Angeles to Hawaii, learn to get along with one another, and also pick the 11 sailors that will make the final race team. In anticipation of the release, we spent a few minutes on the phone with Roy Disney, one of the producers of the film.
To read an interview with Roy Disney done in 2006, before filming started, click here. To view excerpts of Morning Light click here, here, here, here, and here. Podcast sponsored by North Sails, faster by design.

Jan 20, 2009: On Day 1 of 2009 Key West Race Week, Stuart Streuli catches up with Jonathan McKee, tactician for Uka Uka Racing, which won two races in the Melges 24 class.

Jan. 12, 2009: With wins across multiple classes and as both a tactician and a skipper, it's hard to argue that anyone in the sport of sailing, let alone sailor in the United States, had a better year in 2008 than Terry Hutchinson. So it was fitting that after many years on the shortlist, Hutchinson earned his first Rolex Yachtsman of the Year award. He talks about the year he had, what the award means for him, and what's on top for in 2009 for this remarkable sailor.

Jan. 8, 2009: After winning an Olympic gold medal, a women's U.S. match racing championship and finishing second in the Women's Snipe World Championship, Anna Tunnicliffe closed out a remarkable year of sailing by winning the 2008 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year award. It was a well-deserved honor for one of the brightest talents in the country. She talks about the award, her plans for 2009 and beyond, and the sailor she was hoping would win the award instead of herself.

Dec. 8, 2008: Last week, off the coast of Namibia, Paul Larsen pushed his 30-foot Vestas SailRocket to speeds only previously achieved by kiteboarders and windsurfers. His run of 47.35 knots over a 500 meter course stands as the unofficial record for a sailboat. Trying to best that mark, however, saw Larsen and his unusual craft perform a 30-foot backflip. He talks about the record, the crash, and what's next for this daring pilot and his odd-looking craft. To see a video of both the successful run at 47.35 knots and the ensuing backflip, click here.

Sept. 8, 2008: BMW Oracle Racing's James Spithill talks about the biggest thing in America's Cup racing in many years, the team's 90-foot trimaran, which was launched in late August and sailed for the first time last week. How fast can it go? It might depend on how courageous the skipper is. For a photo gallery of the trimaran, click here. Open the podcast, and then view the gallery while listening to Spithill describe the ground-breaking boat. We also have video of the boat under sail.

Aug. 6, 2008: 2008 Olympic Podcast Series: Finn sailor Zack Railey and Yngling helmswoman Sally Barkow speak about Saturday's first races of the Qingdao Olympic Regatta.

July 10, 2008: Once the pinnacle of offshore competition, the Admiral's Cup has all but disappeared from the sailing landscape. It was last held in 2003, canceled in 2001 and 2005. But, at least among the members of the Royal Ocean Racing Club and the elder statesmen in the professional sailing ranks, it hasn't been forgotten. Eddie Warden Owen, who was appointed CEO of the RORC last winter, holds a special place in his heart for the grueling big-boat team competition. But is that enough to get this trophy back on the water? Click here to view a PDF of Ken Read's article on the Admiral's Cup, "Street Fight on the Solent" in the September 1999 issue of Sailing World.

June 23, 2008: James Spithill first learned to sail on a neighbor's Hobie Cat. But since that time he'd had little experience in multihulls until he joined the staff of BMW Oracle Racing. With the next America's Cup less than a year away, and destined to be sailed in a gigantic multihull, the 28-year-old is taking a crash course-with the occasional crash-in multihull sailing. He's been spending time aboard any multihull he can get his hands on, from 60-foot ORMA trimarans to 18-foot beach cats. It's no surprise that he's loving every minute of it.

June 10, 2008: Why is Andy Horton smiling? Well partly because the picture was taken a few days before TP 52 for which he is calling tactics in the 2008 Audi MedCup was involved in a thunderous port-starboard collision near the windward mark. But he's also smiling because for Horton-that collision aside-everything is clicking. In this podcast, we speak with one of grand prix sailing's fastest rising stars.

June 3, 2008: For many American sailors, it's easy to paint Alinghi as the bad guy in the current America's Cup legal battle. And if these same sailors had to pick a face for this syndicate, who better than lead lawyer Lucien Masmejan, a man that few outside the Alinghi syndicate knew until sailing's biggest trophy transitioned from the Med to the New York State Supreme Court. But, of course, Masmejan and Alinghi have their side of the story and we decided to go out and get it.

May 19, 2008: On May 12, the America's Cup appeared to take a big step toward getting out of the courtroom and on to the water. Justice Herman Cahn of the New York State Supreme Court set March 12, 2009, as the date of the first race of the 33rd America's Cup. But many questions still remain. In the first of two Cup podcasts, we check in with BMW Oracle Racing spokesman Tom Ehman. A session with Alinghi lawyer Lucien Masmejan will follow later.

April 2, 2008: With the America's Cup mired in the courts and a multihull match looming, Peter Holmberg's decision to step away from sailing's premiere event after his stint as a helmsman for Alinghi, seems prescient. While his former teammates were trying to salvage Alain Gautier's trimaran, which they capsized during training last weekend, Holmberg was back on Pillsbury Sound in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the same waters upon which he and his brother learned to sail 40 years ago. We took a moment to catch up with the most famous sailor to call St. Thomas home and find out what plans he has for himself in the near future.

March 4, 2008: Going South. Way South. North American sailors are quite familiar with the value of heading south to escape the winter doldrums. Sailing World editor at larger Herb McCormick took this concept to new heights, heading to Australia for two months. He took a deep, satisfying gulp of the sailing lifestyle in Australia and Southeast Asia. He gives us the run down on his antipodean adventures, including sailing in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race (left).

Dec. 18, 2007: As it's looking more and more like Ernesto Bertarelli and Larry Ellison will meet for a "Deed of Gift" challenge in a no-holds-barred, 3-race America's Cup match this coming summer or fall, we look back on the last time the Cup went through a similar situation. In 1988, Sir Michael Fay's 120-foot monohull raced against Dennis Conner's 60-foot cat. On the water, it was a total mismatch, Conner's team won two races with ease, but in the courts Fay almost prevailed. The end result of the "Coma off Point Loma" was the Cup stayed in the United States, and to avoid something like that happening again, the interested parties gathered and developed the America's Cup Class. Cam Lewis, a crew member on Conner's cat, and a veteran of the G-Class cat circuit looks back, and forward, at the America's Cup.

Dec. 7, 2007: In June Terry Hutchinson (right) and Jonathan McKee (far left) were on opposing boats battling in the finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup. Hutchinson was the tactician for Emirates Team New Zealand, while McKee trimmed main for Luna Rossa. Since then, these two talented sailors have taken different paths. McKee is currently in the South Atlantic, pushing the Open 60 Estrella Damm around the world in the Barcelona World Race. Hutchinson is back on the domestic buoy circuit, recently racking up an impressive win in the Farr 40 10th Anniversary Regatta. We speak to both of these sailors in this podcast.

Nov. 26, 2007: Bob Hughes has been pursuing the Canada's Cup trophy for the better part of a decade. After twice losing it, Hughes finally won the Great Lake's most prestigious trophy last October. Now that he's accomplished one of his primary sailing goals, however, Hughes finds himself with a new problem: he must now work to build the event back to its former glory. Winning it was tough, defending it while trying to improve the event may be a significantly bigger challenge.

Oct. 30, 2007: With three years as chairman of US SAILING's Olympic Sailing Committee and the 2007 U.S. Olympic Sailing Trials behind him, former Trials runner-up Dean Brenner looks at his mission to reshape the U.S. Sailing Team into a lean, mean sailing machine capable of competing on an international level with top-dollar programs like that of Great Britain.