John Clarke

John Clarke is a journalist who has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Variety, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair. He currently writes front-page features for The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal •

Hunting In Hot Pink May Be Safer, But Men Aren’t Having It

Kevin Clements, an upland game hunter who lives outside Seattle, plans to start wearing blaze pink instead of orange when he’s out stalking chukar partridges on the high desert of the Pacific Northwest. “I might get a little razzing for wearing pink,” says Clements, a construction contractor. “My friends will absolutely give me a lot of crap. But they give me a lot of crap anyway.”
The New York Times •

At the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, a Female Crew of Two

Kathy Veel has come a long way since 1989, when she first sailed in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race with an all-female crew on the Belles Long Ranger. “It started off with four of us women — we figured, let’s give it a shot,” said Veel, 70, a retired teacher who lives in Bullaburra, about 60 miles west of Sydney, Australia. “We didn’t have a boat. We didn’t have any money. It was a real start from scratch. No one took us seriously.”
The Wall Street Journal •

Want a Free Yeti Cooler? Hundreds Are Washing Up on Alaska’s Coast

Kathy Peavey runs a whale-watching tour business and knows the local seas as well as anybody in her coastal city of Craig, Alaska. When Ms. Peavey heard last fall about a freighter losing shipping containers in rough waters off the coast of British Columbia, the longtime beachcomber knew by experience that cargo would likely drift her way. “Your radar goes up, and you wonder, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” said Ms. Peavey, 59 years old. “What’s coming to our beaches?”
The Wall Street Journal •

Feeling Superior Because the Heat is Still Off? You Might be a New Englander

Brian Chevalier was in bed at his Rhode Island home, worried his pipes might freeze and burst. He had on two pairs of socks, two hats, underwear, pajamas, jeans, two shirts, two vests, two hoodies and fingerless gloves so he could use his iPhone. It was Dec. 19 of last year. The outside temperature was expected to drop to 19 degrees. Finally, at 9 p.m., he caved: He turned on the heat.
The New York Times •

These Formula 1 Drivers Are Still Racing Fast, Just on Water

On a recent sunny September day in Saint-Tropez, where the French SailGP race was taking place, Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez climbed aboard a speedy high-tech $4 million sailboat. The drivers for the Red Bull Formula 1 team had little idea what to expect when they took turns settling into the cockpit of the United States SailGP F50 foiling catamaran, one of the nine team boats that race in the global sailing series, now in its third year. Neither man had ever sailed.
The New York Times •

For the Scottish Open, the Renaissance Club Toughens Up

There has been a certain amount of grumbling — justified or not — about how some European Tour courses play too easy, most notably in 2019 when Rory McIlroy criticized the playability at the Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Scotland, which has hosted the Scottish Open since 2019. “I don’t think the courses are set up hard enough,” McIlroy told reporters at the time after the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, also played in Scotland. “There are no penalties for bad shots.
The New York Times •

This P.G.A. Champion Lost the Wanamaker Trophy. Oops.

It’s nearly impossible to talk about the P.G.A. Championship‘s Wanamaker Trophy without mentioning how the five-time champion Walter Hagen lost it in Chicago after winning the event in 1925. As the story goes, while out in Chicago celebrating the win, Hagen gave his taxi driver $5 and asked him to take the cumbersome trophy to his hotel. It not only never arrived, but Hagen never admitted the loss to the P.G.A. until he lost the championship in 1928 and had to turn the trophy over to the winner.
The New York Times •

Michael Spies Has Become Sailing’s Guru of Speed

Before Sunday’s race, Michael Spies of Australia had sailed the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 43 times. In 1999, he won after breaking the race record by half a day. In 2003, Spies won again. He also has helped fellow sailors find the right boats and refit them into superior racing yachts. His latest effort is the Maritimo, a 54-foot racing yacht he found in the United States for Bill Barry-Cotter, a former motorboat racing champion who also races sailboats.
The New York Times •

A Sailing Season Full of Drama

When Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, and the five-time America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts started SailGP in 2018, they wanted to bring the excitement of Formula 1 to sailing. “You’ve got the best sailors in the world on these boats, and they’re not easy boats to sail,” said Phil Robertson, the driver for Spain’s team. “It’s very high tech — more of a machine than a yacht. But it’s one of the coolest things to happen to yacht racing.”
The New York Times •

A Sailing Season Full of Drama

When Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, and the five-time America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts started SailGP in 2018, they wanted to bring the excitement of Formula 1 to sailing. So far this year, the series has had crashes, Black Flags and broken bones. “You’ve got the best sailors in the world on these boats, and they’re not easy boats to sail,” said Phil Robertson, the driver for Spain’s team. “It’s very high tech — more of a machine than a yacht. But it’s one of the coolest things to happen to yacht racing.”
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