THE WORLD’S CRAZIEST BOATING RACES
THE KRAKEN CUP
The Kraken Cup, run by The Adventurists, is a truly unique experience. This race is held off the coast of Tanzania, and has been engineered to push even the most hardened sailors to their limits.
The race is configured in stages, with nine checkpoints in total and it is down to the sailors to navigate the treacherous waters along the African coast.
There is a risk of capsizing and flooding as competitors contend with reefs, storms and other vessels. If that is not enough, entrants are required to build their own Ngalawa, an outrigger traditionally constructed using driftwood, mango tar and bound together with rope.
TALISKER WHISKY ATLANTIC CHALLENGE
The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge is considered the world’s toughest ocean row. The race takes competitors more than 3000 miles west from San Sebastian in the Canary Islands to Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua in specialising designed rowing boats.
Rowers will row for 2 hours, and sleep for 2 hours, constantly for 24 hours a day while racing, and are faced with exhaustion, and waves measure up to 20-foot high.
Over the course of the boating race, competitors will row in excess of 1.5 million oar strokes, and burn over 5,000 calories per day. More people have climbed Everest than rowed an ocean, so once rowers complete this massive challenge, they join an exclusive group that have shared the adventures of an ocean crossing.
SAILGP
The brainchild of America’s Cup Legend Sir Russell Coutts and billionaire Larry Ellison, SailGP pits nation against nation on foiling sailing yachts built specifically for this competition. These flying F50’s can reach speeds of up to 50 knots, and require the best sailors in the world to operate them. The Australian team, led by Olympian Tom Slingsby, were the first to break the 50-knot speed record, something never before achieved on these boats.
There has already been plenty of thrills and spills since the grand prix’s inception, with a spectacular series of capsizes a regular occurrence as the competitors learn to handle their foiling machines.
In its third year of competition, eight teams go head-to-head in iconic venues across the globe for a winner-takes-all $1 million prize. The F50s were also recently seen in the Hollywood blockbuster Tenet.