koloa maoli launches and begins sailing for 2026 season

Koloa Maoli launches at Maine Yacht Center in late May. Special thanks to Brian Harris and Seth Atwood for helping us launch the boat at night, to take advantage of a high tide.

After a long and unseasonably cold Winter and Spring, it was a powerful step forward for our campaign to get Koloa Maoli back on the water for our second season of sailing together. With the Global Solo Challenge now just 16 months away, 2026 represents a huge year for the campaign. While 2025 was all about acquiring a boat and getting a campaign off the ground, this season will focus on making sure that we are actually ready to cross the starting line in Spain with a competitive boat next October. The biggest hurdle remains raising adequate funding.

Main goals for 2026 will include completing a 2,000 mile qualifying voyage, competing in a handful of offshore yacht races with a full crew including youth sailors and sponsors, and once again touring the east coast in an effort to continue developing relationships with sponsors and supporters, both new and old. Current plans include the Newport and Annapolis boat shows again in September and October. This season will offer us about 5,000 miles of sailing to continue to gain data, learn the boat and inform future decisions on optimization and preparation work to be completed over Winter 2026/27.

Great conditions greeted the team on our first couple of sails in Casco Bay, Portland. With the boat back up and running, shorthanded offshore training and sea-trialing will begin soon, in an effort to be well prepared for a 2,000 mile solo qualifying voyage this summer. Virginia Sambuco photo

Technical Partners play a huge role in Winter and Spring preparations.

During our Winter and Spring yard period, our technical partners really stepped up to the plate with meaningful support, enabling us to hit the water in top shape. We have several more upgrades and maintenance projects to take place onboard Koloa Maoli with our great technical partners, but here’s a few highlights from our recent re-fit.

Major thanks go out to Marlow Ropes for providing us with a lot of new running rigging, and for coming up to Maine to help dial in the boat and splice up some halyards Look for a podcast interview with Marlow soon.

Returning sponsor Wichard Groupe North America helped us on multiple fronts. All 3 of our furling units were sent back to Wichard and Facnor for maintenance and inspection. Spending a couple of months in France, my round-the-world veteran furlers came back looking and feeling like new.

Also from Wichard, returning sponsor Ronstan Sailing hooked us up with some new balls to install into our mainsail luff cars. Installing the balls into these also equally old cars made them feel smooth and slippery again. They already felt pretty good, but were noticeably a bit crunchy. With proper maintenance, all of my high quality gear from many Wichard brands can go the distance for another lap.

New sponsor AkzoNobel and SeaHawk Paints helped us out with bottom paint to help refresh Koloa Maoli’s bottom. With the Sea Hawk Bio Cop TF and Color Kote paints providing a fast and smooth bottom for Dave Linger around the world in 2023-24, it had noticeably started to wear through and allowed marine growth in 2025. A fresh new coat of paint for 2026 is a great upgrade.

Last year, we were in many ways sailing blind. We had no boat computer - nor fancy software - to log data and do high performance weather routing, and we also had no radar unit that was functional with a display. Now this year we have both. Big thanks to Getac Computers for supplying us with a rugged laptop and tablet, which I have installed Expedition Marine software for routing on both machines. I have just integrated the laptop to my navigation station and boat instruments, and I plan to get the tablet online soon. This is a major performance upgrade for us to be able to collect data, verify gains and settings, learn the boat and route ourselves more efficiently during training and racing.

We are also thrilled to be working this spring with the Roux Institute, a graduate outpost of Northeastern University, and a group of their project management graduate students on a capstone course designed specifically around the Ronnie Simpson Racing Global Solo Challenge campaign. Marisa & I attended their intro class to brief the students on the campaign in April, a mid-course check-in to answer questions last month, and will be attending their final class next week to hear the project teams’ final presentations & proposals for how to optimize our sponsorship strategy, marketing & communications plan, and fundraising roadmap. We’ve also invited the students on a field trip to tour Koloa Maoli in advance to their final presentations next week.

Photo with 2023-24 Global Solo Challenge title sponsor Fred Forsley of Shipyard Brewing. We are actively seeking sponsors for the 2027-28 campaign.

While we have managed to raise a solid base of support since acquiring Koloa Maoli in early 2025, we still have a very long way to go. For us to do more than simply sail the boat, we very much need to become connected to more funding. The Global Solo Challenge starts in just sixteen more months, and securing adequate financial support has never been more important for us to have a real shot in the Global Solo Challenge next year.

If you are in a position to support the campaign, make a connection to a brand or person who may, or just want to learn more about the many benefits of sponsoring this solo global ocean racing campaign, please feel free to reach out via email at ronniesimpsonracing@gmail.com.

This campaign, and the ones before it have been the culmination of a group of people who share the dream of seeing Americans compete in shorthanded offshore racing on the world stage. A global sporting property with huge potential reach and a campaign with a story that can connect with the international public, we really think we have something valuable to offer the right brands and individuals.

As a campaign that sails to benefit US Patriot Sailing, a 501c3 non-profit, we can accept tax-deductible, charitable contributions as well, and also have a crowdfunding page to help us cover some operating expenses in the short term.