On the second day of the 2026 Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta in St. Petersburg, the bow of Kevin Holmberg’s Sonar crossed the starting line mere inches away from the pin buoy, within a beat of the start signal. Seconds later, he and teammates tacked onto port and easily cruised across the fleet vying for the Sonar Midwinter Championship title. Through the smooth roll tack, Holmberg waited on the low side and then gingerly stood, stepped across the boat, passed the tiller behind his back and sat on the weather rail as the boat accelerated out of the tack — perfectly executed maneuver.
A casual observer of this particular start would have no clue that Holmberg, as a teenager, was once thought to never walk, talk or be champion sailor he is today. But the maneuver in St. Pete is a thing of beauty for the talented para sailor and his teammates on Fawkes, which includes tactician Paul Perry, trimmer Alexandra Crow and foredeck Ryan Gray. After winning the series’ opening race, they would go on to win three more to pocket the midwinter title by a single point over 2016 Paralympic silver medalist skipper Rick Doerr.
Team Fawkes’ performance in the nine-boat Sonar fleet over the weekend, which featured two days of predominantly light winds and one final windy contest, also earned the team the first of six coveted berths at the Helly Hansen Sailing World Regatta Series Caribbean Championship with Sunsail in November.
Team Fawkes’ win was no cake walk, however. With the Sonars tucked on a racecourse near the St. Pete Pier, conditions were challenging for teams dealing with the twisting near-shore winds and powerboat wakes. Such conditions require patience and focus, skills—which are Holmberg’s strengths.
Perry says Holmberg is “one of the best drivers” he’s ever sailed with. Even with the pressure of the Midwinter title, Perry says, Holmberg approached the regatta “quite calm” and was unrattled by the racecourse’s conditions. “He just kept his head about him the whole time, just kept his eyes forward on the telltales,” Perry says, “and let Ryan, Alex and I do our jobs, and we were able to keep ahead with that.”
On the final day of the regatta, with winds building from glass calm to 20-plus knots and steep waves, Fawkes pocketed another race win. On the bow, Gray handled the choreography of spinnaker, relying on Holmberg’s steady driving to keep him on the boat when it really started to blow. In the middle, Crow acted as the communication hub, focused on “feed[ing] him the correct information” and making sure everything was “relayed correctly and quickly” between bow and stern. Perry, who helped Kevin build the sailing team, highlighted how often they sail on this racecourse, turning its land-induced quirks and unpredictable shifts into a home-water advantage. The result was a crew that not only thrived when it was “either nuking or when there’s absolutely nothing,” Perry says, but also translated years of weekly sailing together into a composed, coordinated regatta win.
Holmberg, who once competed in the Paralympic 2.4 Metre class and is now focused on the Sonar, says he was concentrating on the experience more than the result. The midwinter championship, he says, felt “pretty normal.”
Looking ahead from the win, Holmberg says he’s looking forward to the British Virgin Islands championship berth as “a fantastic trip.”
