News Around the World
They came, they impressed, they didn’t quite conquer. Fast Exit finished a brutal 20 seconds behind Division 2 winner Zero Gravity in this year’s Transpac. Fast Exit started life in 2012 as the Ker IRC46 Varuna, next becoming the late Piet Vroon’s Tonnerre and then Oystercatcher before making its way to California four years ago. We covered Ker’s dramatic update of one of his most enduringly successful IRC designs in Issue 520 and with the bow treatment and sliced-away foredeck it would be hard to distinguish his latest incarnation from a Fast40 like Rán 7. Ker left little on the table with what is surely the last go-around for this much travelled racer…
assessed for a number of qualities including on the AC40 simulator, team work and attitude. The final teams of five sailors each will be selected by the panel in December of this year. Of the 121 applications received, 100 comprising both men and
women fell within the youth age bracket. All the female applicants who met the youth age criteria applied for both categories. ‘We had applications from women aged 18 to almost 50,’ Beavis
notes. ‘There were fewer and fewer applicants as age increased. There were 31 youth-female applicants, which is a really exciting area as they are eligible for both teams and are the future role models.’ More than 20 of the youth applicants were under 19, including some ‘very strong’ candidates, according to Beavis. Some applicants had no sailing background, but interestingly
more than 30 per cent have foiling experience ranging from single- handed dinghies such as Moths and Waszps, to wingfoilers and windsurfers, through to larger team boats such as the 69F. Some already had F50 and/or AC40 experience. There are four Olympic medals among the applicants and many more medals from world championships in Olympic classes, youth classes and match racing. AC37 will be the first to include a Women’s America’s Cup, but
New Zealand has an extraordinary record at the two previous Youth America’s Cups. A crew led by Peter Burling won the inaugural youth event in San Francisco in 2013, with another Kiwi crew skippered by Will Tiller a close second. At the Bermuda America’s Cup in 2017 the New Zealand team led by Logan Dunning Beck came agonisingly close to defending the title, but did well to take the silver medal.
Still crazy after all these years Milestone birthdays are opportunities for reflection, but on turning 80 Chris Bouzaid – whose life of sailing accomplishment, including groundbreaking victories in the One Ton Cup and Sydney-Hobart Race, offers much to reflect upon – remains firmly focused on what lies ahead: ‘I don’t see much point in looking back. Memories are wonderful things, but looking forward to things you are still going to do is far more important.’ On both sides of a yarn-filled birthday bash at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron – attended by sailing luminaries from New Zealand, Australia and further afield – his calendar brimmed with things to do, places to go. Shortly before arriving in New Zealand he had been in the
Caribbean, racing on the 49m Vitters ketch Meraki with his son, Richard, and a full works team from Doyle Sails in the St Barths Bucket superyacht regatta. ‘I posted on Facebook that you know you are on a big yacht when
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it takes two people to carry an empty sailbag,’ he chuckles. The day he and his wife, Lydia, flew into Auckland for his birthday
celebrations they went racing on the Waitemata Harbour onboard the Logan classic Rainbow. Bouzaid’s sailmaker father, Leo Bouzaid, owned Rainbowafter World War Two. Chris Bouzaid is a shareholder in the boat with Brad Butterworth, David Glenn and Hamish Ross. ‘It was blowing like stink. We had the wrong sails. The bottom
was dirty. We did poorly,’ Bouzaid laments. ‘We were meant to go out racing again the following Sunday and obviously now we had the bottom cleaned… but it was blowing so hard they called it off.’ Following a quick trip to Australia was a first-time return since
childhood to the isolated Lord Howe Island, where his mother once ran a guesthouse. ‘In many ways my time on Lord Howe Island is the first real memory I have.’ Having ticked off those events, Bouzaid was impatient to get
back to his recently acquired classic 30 Square Metre for a summer of racing in Maine. ‘We were skiing in Utah last March,’ he says. ‘I still ski every year, but not as aggressively as I used to. Anyway, while we were stormbound for a bit, I found some old yachting magazines and saw this boat advertised for sale in Seattle. ‘I called the owner and bought it. It is a beautiful boat, built in
Germany in the early 1970s. The owner had two of them, one a racing version and one a cruising version. I bought the cruising one. The thing that makes it a cruiser is two tiny lockers by the compan- ionway, otherwise it is identical to the racing version!’ he laughs. This represents a return to the 30 Square Metre class for Bouzaid.
‘I owned one of these boats in New Zealand when I was about 20 years old. It was called Caprice and we won several ocean races. ‘She had no lifelines or self-bailing cockpit. I don’t think we even
carried lifejackets. It was a bit different back then. We had this tiny Primus stove. In one of our races we hoisted the spinnaker and the Primus went up with it so then we couldn’t even have a hot drink. ‘This new boat has taken a bit of sorting out. I tried to race it
last season with the sails it came with, which were about 40 years old. It was a shock to realise just how bad the sails we raced with in those days were.’ Having ordered a new mainsail from son Richard, Bouzaid stitched up a new spinnaker in his basement. ‘I still have three sewing machines. Col Anderson (an Australian
sailing legend) visited me and we also made up a new headsail. With better sails we were hanging in quite well by the end of last year. I think we won the last five races in Newport, RI!’ As Paul Simon sang, ‘Still crazy after all these years…’
Ivor Wilkins
SHARON GREEN/ULTIMATE SAILING
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