News Around the World
A sad end. The Farr-designed IOR maxi ketch The Card was one of several well-known racing boats dealt the last rites by this winter’s Caribbean hurricanes. The Card was built for the 1989/90 Whitbread Race but did not have a happy life, T-boning a cruising boat back home in Sweden and leaving her mizzen mast behind at Auckland’s Whitbread restart after snagging it on the rig of a spectator boat
It was game-on, as Mark Richards on Wild Oats explained. ‘We were in touch coming around Tasman Island, by then just three miles
behind Comanche, and all of a sudden our dreams came true: the Derwent River with no wind in it. Nothing comes for free –all that power doesn’t come for free, and in the Derwent the one thing you don’t need is power.’ With so much form-stability even canting the keel fully on
Comanche had little influence on reducing the wetted surface, and in super-light airs Oats slipped past the much newer boat to finish 26 minutes ahead… but the protest was still to be heard. ‘Easy,’ said Spithill, ‘it was a straight port/starboard. We were
the right-of-way boat. Wild Oats was the give-way boat. We hailed starboard and they left it until far too late to tack and did so right in our water. We had to take evasive action or we could have taken their backstay out and broken our bowsprit.’ The provisional result was reversed with the jury handing Wild
Oats a one-hour penalty, relegating them into second place and giving Cooney a line honours victory with his new boat in a record time of 1d 9h 15m 24s, slicing 4h 15m 56s off the previous record set in 2016. The new owner of Comanche was pretty happy with his
acquisition… ‘Who’d have thought we’d finish on 27 December, the Hobart’s now an overnighter! The guys were fantastic. Stan Honey is not just a navigator, he is the navigator. Jimmy Spithill is pretty good too!’ With such a quick race the 50-footers were always favoured for
handicap honours, and so it was, with Matt Allen winning his first Tattersall Cup as an owner on Ichi Ban, 34 years after he won it as crew onboard the IOR One Tonner Challenge II with Lou Abrahams. ‘I’ve been planning this race since 2001. I’ve built a number of boats, including the Farr 52, then the Carkeek 60, and then bought the original Shogun TP52 and modified it. This time I tried to find a boat that fits the formula and could compete in lots of conditions,’ he said of his new TP52 which was delivered in October. ‘This boat is built lighter than the earlier TP52s. But the first thing I built this boat for was to go ocean racing, especially the Hobart,
28 SEAHORSE
so it’s not silly light. I first came down to Hobart to watch the finish in 1976, 41 years ago, and I sailed my first Hobart in 1980 at the age of 17. Thank you to my crew, they did an incredible job.’ Blue Robinson
USA (A little) light at the end of the tunnel This has been the first January in memory (30 years, in fact) when there has not been a Key West Race Week. The ‘polar vortex’ and other such monikers given to the sub-zero temperatures common to much of the northern US have reminded many of the valuable break this week gave us – especially in this particular winter’s icy grip where even northern Florida had snow. Yet the organising Storm Trysail Club’s reasoning for taking this
pause is sound: the event became just too expensive to run with too few assured entries, with the cost and revenue curves threatening to cross at any time. Not a risk a modest-sized club like STC wants to take. When this was confirmed last spring some took it as a barometer
for the sport, but other events (such as Storm Trysail’s other signature event, Block Island Race Week, or Sperry Charleston Race Week) have been doing fine with their entry counts. Yet STC has not been asleep, and there are discussions among
the flag officers on what paths to take forward. They have been assuring those who ask that the event is not dead, only dormant, and ideas are being solicited on how to bring it back to life. ‘Storm Trysail is exploring ideas that would lead to a successful relaunch of this important event,’ said Ron Weiss on behalf of the club. ‘Among our goals would be to change format a little. Changes
might include an offshore race – potentially the Lauderdale to Key West Race – and more non-W/L courses. We are also examining the length of the event and if it should run on a biennial basis.’ In the meantime, and further south and east in the islands, many
of those who missed the first hurricane last autumn got walloped hard by the second, and the future of much of the Caribbean sailing scene had been very much in doubt. Fundraisers to solicit money
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