The long wait was over and the anticipated weather patterns rang true on the first day of sailing in Qingdao. Place changes were rife and the likes of triple Olympic medal winner Ben Ainslie suffered in the light airs and fluky conditions in the opening race clocking a tenth placed finish. There were more holes on the bay of Qingdao than in Granny's knitting. However, he got into the groove and pulled out a win in the second race. Batman Returns ....eat your heart out. It's Ben returns. Watch this space. My money is unquestionably on Mr Ainslie. - Ingrid Abery.

The second of our weekly feature with PPL Media, showing Whitbread boats from year's past. Today's is from the 1993/4 Whitbread Round The World Race (Volvo) and is the Volvo 60 Tokio skippered by Chris Dickson screaming up the Solent towards the finish. One of the all time great shots.

Last week, Alinghi's Ed Baird took the overall victory in what was easily the most competitive X-40 fleet ever assembled. Team Origin's Rob Greenhalgh got the second place, and holds the overall iShares lead by just a point – he answered some questions for Anarchists earlier this week. Rob has been in the class since the beginning, and holds more X-40 victories than anyone, while Ed is a relative newbie to the class and boat. He gave us a few quick answers to some questions we had about Ed and the X-40.

SA: Did you have a good time?

EdB: The iShares Cup at Skandia Cowes Race Week was a blast. We had bigger breeze than we've seen before, along with strong currents and lots of "bogies" going through the course. On top of that, there always seemed to be a media boat doing 20 knots just to leeward and ahead of every boat in the fleet. In a word, it was chaotic!

There were 11 competitors. 5 capsized. 3 broke masts. 3 had major hull or beam damage. And that's in a fleet of Olympic medalists and World Champions. We hit a top speed on Monday of 24.8 knots on the GPS. That was downwind against nearly 3 knots of tide. The action was fast and furious, and there were tired but happy faces all around.

I don't care what anyone says, the X-boats at Cowes Week are still one of the best looking fleets around, and at 80 strong who would argue? - Anarchist Mike Jones.

The Spice Race team, organizers of the new ocean race, which starts on the 15 November and runs from Cowes, IOW to Grenada, WI, don’t see pix of boats and flyers extolling the event as the way to promote a yacht race.

They reckon the way to go is with a bit of glamour, so - as part of the Skandia Cowes Week fun - the team had Playboy model, Sophie Reade, arrive in the "Spice Machine". That’s an Audi R8, with 4321 - which just happens to be the number of miles from the Solent to Grenada - emblazoned down the side. We’ve gotta hope that more organizers take this approach to promotion. More about the event here and more pix here.

You've seen the pictures, you've read the accounts, you've drooled over the speeds. And now here's your chance to do it. Your pals at SA and Skiff sailor and boat builder Brett Van Munster are offering you a chance to go for a Skiff spin. "What's the catch, Ed?" you ask? Amazingly none, really. You do have to be in San Francisco this Sunday, August 10. The boys will be thaere as part of the North America International 18’ft skiff regatta Aug 12-16th, and the Ronstan Bridge to bridge on the 15th and will happily take a lucky anarchist out before the regattas start. We reckon you'll need a wetsuit, booties and a smock top of some sort. Oh yeah, and you have to write about it for all the anarchists who didn't get to go. Interested? Drop us an e-mail.

Smokin' hot last weekend was Detroit – and not just due to the bikini-encouraging weather. Winning 14 of 15 one-design races at the 5th annual Bayview Women's Invitational Regatta was “Pretty, Fast,” led by laser radial chick Lauren Knoles. Along with crew Allison Declerq, 16, Katie Barbour, 15, and Alison Knoles, 12, our Sailor Chicks of the Week put a hurting that won't soon be forgotten on five other Ultimate 20s during this great girls-only regatta. The four of them are normally single-handed dinghy sailors, and she put the team together for just this event. During races, they were giggling and squealing, or jamming to rap music. Between races, they chilled by laying out on the deck and texting friends. Congrats to the girls. Thanks to SailorRose for the nomination, and congrats on another good year of a great event – see the report below for more from one of the most Anarchist-infused, young-spirited regattas in the US. This week's Sailor Chick of the Week is brought to you by Annapolis Performance Sailing.

That $43 billion is what China has spent on the Olympics so far, a figure that far surpasses what has ever spent spent in Olympic history. of course China had a hell of a lot of work to do to make it not look like the repressive, crowded, and polluted country that it is. We'll be featuring a ton of great pictures from Olympic sailing, and this shot is from Carlo Borlenghi.

On October 14, 2008 five guys in a Radford 14m aluminum pilothouse sailboat are going to sail over 12, 000 nautical miles from Oakville, Ontario to Melbourne, Australia. The ocean voyage starts in NYC, one stop in Cape Town. The journey follows the same route taken by the great clipper ships from North America and Europe on their way to South Africa and Australia via the Atlantic and Southern Oceans.

No altruistic reasons for doing this trip. None of the crew wants to break records or create new ones. The boys only have a passion for sailing and years of beer can racing have made their craving for longer passages overwhelming. (Plus some quality time away from the domestic managers)

John Gayford built the Falcon GT by hand over a six year period with his Canadian mates in Oakville Ontario. One way to get a boat to suit the wifely budget, and one that will make it to Australia, from whence he was ‘exiled’ 25 years ago.

John and his gang are doing this for the pleasure of fast ocean sailing with great mates. (And Happy Hour) But to ease the guilt of taking on this selfish venture the crew is using this trip to raise support of cancer research, specifically cancer that affect men like John and his son who know the battle first hand. Check it.

“Men who put dreams into reality are dangerous – follow them”.

A month before the Quebec Saint Malo Transat, and having just won overall in the Marblehead to Halifax Race, Tanguy de Lamotte on board his Rogers Class 40 (NOVEDIA Group - S.E.T Environment), was quoted as saying: “this result has given the crew the belief and confidence that they could beat the best of the Class40 skippers – namely Giovanni Soldini…….. “

Tanguy de Lamotte gives his account of what happened next:
“We got a really good start, in front of the 400 year old Québec town, in the St. Lawrence River with a lot of tide pushing us in the right direction. We were drifting faster than the other boats and got in front and then extended our lead rapidly in the light air using our genoa and big spinnaker. After 24hrs of racing, we were sailing along side Crepes Whaou, the leading Open 50 trimaran and had a 10 mile lead on the second class 40!!!

Detroit was indeed warm and sunny for Bayview Yacht Club’s 5th Annual Women’s Invitational Regatta held last weekend. The conditions were near perfect for racing despite a bit of light air on Sunday morning.

The big news of the weekend was the outstanding performance by 19-year-old Lauren Knoles and her team on Pretty, Fast. With an average age of 15.5 years and only 22 years of racing experience between them, these young sirens won 14 out of 15 races in the U-20 class beating women who were more than two to three times their ages. Defiant Blitz Wave, helmed by Chris Erdmann, was the only boat to beat them and upset the perfect record in race 13. Our good pals Orphan and ZiggyandRolo took second.

We've featured lots of great surfing shots here at the world famous Sailing Anarchy, but this one captures that one righteous moment when the boat is at that maximum speed. So great.This Incredible shot is of a M 30 during the the Race Around France 2008 by Jean-Marie Liot. And as great as these guys look, you can see, and we're sure you know, how quickly it can all go wrong!

After the iShares racing, in Cowes, Marian Martin spoke to Franck Cammas and asked him about the iShares event and how he feels about a DoG match in multihulls. He began by explaining that BT collision:

"Often when you’re racing you all get to the windward mark together, and when we were on port tack with other boats downwind of us, BT and James Spithill on the other BMW Oracle, all 3 of us had to bear away and Alinghi was on starboard tack when BT closed the door on us, so there was no room to luff again between BT and Alinghi. As a result we were left with no choice and unfortunately made contact!"

Read the rest here or if French is your native language go here. Collision pic from Mark Lloyd images.

Ken Read gives you a great read on his upcoming Puma "il mostro" VOR effort. Enjoy.

SA: Give us a little insight into the sail package for this VOR. In what areas are you concentrating? Spinnaker development? Film and fibers? Is there anything left in terms of breakthrough or are sails for these things more evolutionary?

KR: For sure this event will be different from the last Volvo, as all the boats have pushed themselves wider to the powerful side of the box rule. Therefore, I don’t think we will see one boat dominate like the last race—and the little things become that much more important. Honestly, I think ABN Amro 1 could have flown cotton sails last race and still won. With that said, we have spent a ton of time with our sail designer JB Braun and the entire North Sails team working on our sail program. Wind tunnel sessions, different fiber orientations, sail sizing---it is all critical as we are only allowed 24 sails for the race and 11 on board. Making fast sails is one thing but they have to last as well. A sail card is treated like gold. So- to answer your question—we have been working hard on all aspects of the sail development and although I don’t see a “code 0” type breakthrough on the horizon- you never know! On a side note, I think JB is psyched for this race to start more than anyone because we drag him offshore with us almost every trip. He puts on a brave face and has worked at the sail development harder than any of us could ask—but I think he is ready to go back to being a desk jockey!

Those of you in the industry, or those who have been can certainly relate on some level to this article on Jud Smith from Doyle Sails.

A soaking wet road trip to Newport, R.I., with a possible tornado funneling above him, a day after he hopped off a plane from the Midwest. This is about as close to home as Jud Smith gets these days.

"I am all over," he said.In the past 30 years he has gone from city to city, country to country, chasing races. Newport happened to be the next waypoint. Read the story.