Rainbow is a faithful replica of Harold Vanderbilt’s 1934 America’s Cup winner, built in aluminium by Holland Jachtbouw in 2012


Barcelona regatta at the America’s Cup event in October last year. We’d put a new mast in and we had a few delays on that, so we only had three days of practice. We race with 28-30 crew, probably two or three fewer than the other boats. Erle Williams runs the racing programme, he helms the boat. We had Murray Jones on tactics, Si-Fi on navigation, Tony Mutter, Brad Jackson, Simon Daubney, George Skuodas, Antonio “Neti” Cuervas-Mons on bow. With so little practice we needed a crew to gel quickly. We went there to win. We didn’t do that but we got the boat going very well. We were winning races, it normally takes 12 months’ racing in class to get there. We’re learning the boat, so at regattas we do this year we’ll just keep getting better and better.’ With an asking price of EUR 9,950,000,


what does Sweetman make of her brokerage potential? ‘She’s definitely priced to sell. Replacement would probably take EUR 24,000,000 and three- to-four years, maybe longer. On top of that you can only build an existing J Class design and, now that Yankee’s in build, there’s probably two or three designs left out there that you could get going well. It’s getting to be an even more exclusive club. ‘For 2026 there’s discussion about the


class getting involved with the 150th anniversary of Cowes Week, then Sweden and St. Tropez for dedicated J regattas. We’re also waiting to see where the America’s Cup is, generally the boats will want to get involved in that. ‘The owners always get to decide where


they want to go sailing, which regattas they want to do, whether they want to join


other regattas or hold their own events. One of the many nice things about the class is that owners can pick and choose how they want to participate.’ And what of Rainbow’s plans for this


year? ‘It was a busy year last year, getting ready for the America’s Cup. Everyone’s quite happy to have a year off so the owners can enjoy cruising, which is one of the great things about these boats. When cruising we run with seven or eight crew depending on the level of hospitality needed. For anyone looking to do a mixture of both, I can’t think of a better class. For a 40m boat you don’t get as much volume as you would on a modern boat, but what you do get in spades is the prestige. Rainbow draws a crowd wherever she goes.’ www.bernard-gallay.com


❑


One notable concession to modernity aboard Rainbow is an impressively equipped 21st


century galley


SEAHORSE 85


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