FEATURES

Eyes right
It was straight back under cover of the skirts and awnings at the end of the official racing of the 2006 ACC season, but not before Emirates Team New Zealand had scored an impressive run of results and offered a taster of what to expect in 2007. TIM JEFFERY reports from Valencia

Nice vintage
TERRY HUTCHINSON got a five-day break as part of Grant Dalton's legendary 'generous rewards package' at Emirates TNZ - and he used some of it to pen his Seahorse Valencia diary...

The way forward
GLENN BOURKE could not have been more prompt or forthright with his announcement about the next Volvo Ocean Race. Here he explains the logic behind his planned changes

VO70 Technology review - Part I
BATTENS
Sail-batten technology has made huge strides in recent years but nowhere have advances been tested more severely than in the latest Volvo Ocean Race. RUSSELL BELBEN investigates

HALYARD LOCKS
Slowly trickling down from the largest raceboats, halyard locks are becoming increasingly familiar on offshore yachts. PAUL SNAPE explains some of the development driven by the VO70 fleet

TAKEN FOR GRANTED - PART II
TORBJØRN LINDERSØN concludes his search for a better fast-action mainsheet system in conjunction with Harken's engineering team

REGULARS

COMMODORE'S LETTER - DAVID AISHER

EDITORIAL - ANDREW HURST

Update
Bonjour... to the winners of the 2006 Rolex Commodores' Cup and bravo... to BRUNO PEYRON, ROGER NILSON and crew for taking Orange II to not one but two major new sailing records. Plus RORC Commodore DAVID AISHER sets out an organiser's point of view

World News
A first sail on the mighty Groupama 3, is it true that God is French, Bruno's Atlantic Express, a successful debut for Deauville International Week, Crusty gets his prize (and goes all 'tech' on us), Juan K's dim views on dumbing down, the Brunel team will try anything... the Ben Lexcen legend lives on and the (rather slow) Centennial Newport-Bermuda Race. PATRICE CARPENTIER, ROB MUNDLE, IVOR WILKINS, CARLOS PICH and DOBBS DAVIS

Paul Cayard
Reflects upon an important goal achieved and on the pleasures of 'hanging out'... (or trying to)

ORC Column
And the TP52's unofficial little sis' gets itself off to a cracking start

Olympic and small boat news - 70 years young
My, how those National 12s have changed over the years... GRAHAM CAMM, BIM DASER, PHIL MORRISONand GAVIN WILLIS

Design
- Worth a second look - Part 1
Looks mad... but give it a little more time: NEAL PAWSON has put a great deal into researching his outwardly-radical OUT95 design, and there is some smart thinking to be found in the mix

Seahorse raceboat build table
- More to come
ADRIAN KONYNENDYK and JORT VAN SISSEREN describe their new ORC GP42, for which a fast-growing class appears to await

RORC news

Seahorse race calendar

Seahorse Sailor of the Month
And a brainy line-up for you this month...