Plan the season. Sail the results.

Serious race campaigns don’t plan one crossing ahead, they plan entire seasons.

For serious race programmes, the season isn't built race by race. It's built months in advance, with every decision shaped by what comes next. The boats may compete fiercely on the water, but success often depends on logistics planned long before the first start gun fires.

That is why many teams work with Sevenstar Yacht Transport well ahead of the racing calendar, securing both outbound and return crossings in a single strategy. For campaigns moving between the Caribbean and Europe, round-trip planning has become less of a convenience and more of a competitive advantage. It creates certainty around schedules, protects valuable preparation time, and allows teams to focus on performance rather than logistics.

On the dock in St. Thomas, just after the Caribbean racing circuit, that dynamic is easy to see. Boats including Hummingbird, Bella Mente and Galateia remain in place, but the atmosphere has shifted. Sails are stowed, rigs are quiet, and crews are already preparing for the next phase of the season. Slings are laid out, cradles positioned and containers assembled along the quay.

What appears to be downtime is anything but. The race season never really stops. The moment one campaign ends, the next begins.

Racing may be about performance, but performance depends on what happens beyond the racecourse. The yacht has to move again, the crew has to reset, and the entire campaign must be repositioned efficiently, without delay or uncertainty. The visible results on the water are only possible because the invisible structure supporting them is already in place.

The leg that quietly decides the season.

For Hummingbird, the key decision was made long before the first race.

We got in contact with Sevenstar about a year in advance. We knew we had a busy race season coming up, so we decided to book the return journey as well.

The yacht departed Palma de Mallorca in January following a period of upgrades before arriving in the Caribbean for a demanding programme that included Antigua, St. Barths and the BVI Spring Regatta. The preparation paid off, with the team securing three second-place finishes.

But a successful campaign isn't judged by results alone. It's defined by what happens afterwards.

‘The most critical thing about the round trip is the trip back,’ Hill explains. Once the yacht returns to Europe, the schedule tightens immediately. Yard periods, crew rotations, training blocks and race entries are all fixed. There is little room for delay.

‘It's tight to get back to the Med, and the most reliable way to do so is to come with Sevenstar and get there on time.’

The next destination for Hummingbird is already set.

‘Next stop for us is Sorrento,’ Hill says. ‘As soon as we come off the ship in Palma, we are straight back into it. A bit of training in midsummer and then off to the Swan Worlds.’

That immediacy is exactly why uncertainty on the return leg is not an option. Without secured transport back to Europe, the entire second half of the season becomes conditional. Round-trip thinking naturally becomes part of the campaign itself.

Build the season with Sevenstar, then sail it.

The principle is simple, but it requires discipline.

‘We try to plan about a year in advance,’ Hill continues. ‘And we are already talking with Sevenstar about the return journey next year to match it with the race calendar.’

The process begins with the immovable dates: when the yacht needs to race and when the crew needs to be in place. Everything else is planned backwards from there. Race schedules determine arrival dates. Arrival dates determine loading windows. Those windows influence yard planning and crew logistics. Without a secured return journey, the sequence begins to unravel. With it, the campaign remains intact. * ‘There are many stages of planning for these events, especially when you have a busy race calendar,’* Hill says. ‘In the long term, knowing that you are going on a ship allows you to rest your crew and hit the ground running, starting at full speed again.’ Transport, in other words, isn't an afterthought. It is one of the foundations of the campaign.

‘We all love to do the Transatlantic sailing; it's one of the highlights of the year for a lot of sailors,’ Hill adds. ‘But when you are in a busy race programme, you just have to get the yacht from A to B as quickly and safely as possible. Loading her onto a Sevenstar ship removes the risk and the breakage that can happen during an ocean crossing.’

Not just a yacht, but a moving system.

What moves between continents is far more than a hull. Hummingbird travels with two 20-foot containers and a 40-foot high cube.

‘We have a workshop, a sail container, and another container with equipment,’ Hill explains.

Inside are sails, rigging, spare parts and tools, everything required to keep the yacht competitive.

‘With these kinds of boats, we really rely on our containers,’ he says. ‘Turning up without the full inventory means you don't have the best opportunity to fix the boat when things go wrong.’

Racing yachts are systems operating under constant pressure. Performance depends on how quickly teams can respond to issues, and the yacht itself is only one part of that equation. The support infrastructure travels with it, and it all has to arrive together.

The plan versus the day.

Behind what appears to be a straightforward operation lies weeks of preparation.Behind what appears to be a straightforward operation lies weeks of preparation.

‘A lot of planning goes into it before the port call,’ says Sevenstar loadmaster Scott Aubinger. ‘From the stow plans to making sure all the lifting gear is correct and available.’

Yet no operation is entirely predictable.* ‘During the actual operation, things change,’* he says. ‘That's why we are there, thinking on our feet and working with the crew and the captain.’

The positioning of each yacht, the alignment of lifting points and rig clearances are managed in real time. ‘It's a lot of teamwork,’ Aubinger adds. The process is highly controlled, but never static.

Keeping the fleet together.

For the captain of Galateia, the value of that structure extends beyond a single crossing. *‘We've been coming out here the last few winters with the same group of boats,’ *he says. ‘It's important that we race together and stay racing together.’ That continuity depends on transport.

‘Our boats can't sail across the Atlantic. If we don't go on a ship, we don't come here.’

Like Hummingbird, Galateia booked transport as a round trip. That certainty allows teams to schedule refits, organise crew and commit to European racing programmes without guesswork. ‘Transport makes our season much longer,’ he says. ‘It allows us to be here and then go straight back into racing in Europe.’

Looking across the ship's deck, he describes the operation as a coordinated whole. ‘Everything is packed in, yachts, containers, support boats. It's pretty impressive how it all fits together.’

Even so, the experience never becomes routine.

‘It's nerve-wracking,’ says Peter Henderson, captain of Bella Mente. ‘You're putting your baby on a crane and watching her swing in the air.’

Familiarity helps. ‘We've loaded with the same loadmaster a few times,’ he says. ‘You build a good working relationship.’

But even the best plans require flexibility. * ‘You look at the drawings and the stow plans beforehand, but when you're on deck, things might be slightly different. You have to be flexible and make it work.’*

As Henderson notes, ‘the logistics allow us to do all of that.’

Modern race campaigns depend on logistics not simply as a support function, but as an enabler of performance. Round-trip planning is where that reality becomes most visible.

A commitment on both sides.

Round-trip planning works because it represents a commitment from everyone involved. Owners secure transport early and build their campaigns around fixed sailing schedules. In return, Sevenstar commits to capacity and delivery.

*‘We are already setting up the next racing season,’ *says Sander Speet.

Outbound sailings in January and return sailings in late March or early April are structured around the rhythm of the racing calendar.

Within the Spliethoff Group, access to a large fleet of company-owned vessels enables capacity to be secured well in advance. For race campaigns operating on fixed timelines, that reliability is essential.

A round trip provides certainty in both directions. The yacht has a guaranteed return. The schedule is anchored. The teams responsible for delivering that movement are committed to making it happen.

The race starts long before the start.

‘I think transport planning is a critical part of the whole racing operation,’ Hill says. That is the underlying principle.

Racing success depends on what happens before the start and after the finish. It depends on aligning every part of the campaign and removing uncertainty wherever possible.

Round-trip planning does exactly that. It allows teams to focus on performance, knowing that the logistics are already secured.

And in a sport defined by timing, that certainty becomes part of the result.