Yachts & Yachting – August 2019

It was a day of drama on the Hudson River for

the first day of the New York SailGP, which saw

the world’s fastest sail racing boats hitting high

speeds in front of crowds lining the waterfront

at Brookfield Place in Battery Park City.

The spectacle started before the gun was

fired, with a strong gust capsizing the GBR Team

30 minutes before the first race. All sailors were

safe, with no injuries, but damage to the wingsail

put them out for day one. Their shore team

worked through the night to repair the damage

and had the team back on the water for day

two. See our full preview of the next event in the

SailGP series, at Cowes, on page 28.

NEWS

18ft Eeyore wins Round the Island Race

Light conditions proved the undoing of many

Round the Island Race competitors, with only

257 out of 1,200 entrants finishing by the

10.30pm deadline.

The 100ft trimaran Actual Leader took 7hrs

33mins and 36secs to round the island for line

honours, and Sir Peter Ogden’s Judel Vrolijk

Mini Maxi Jethou was the fastest monohull

at 9hrs 28secs. The race win and coveted

Golden Roman Bowl was won by the smallest

competing yacht – a bilge-keeled Alacrity 18

named Eeyore, skippered by Gurnard resident

Jo Richards (pictured below, centre) with a time

of 13hrs 36min and 31secs. “It was an interesting

but long race,” said Richards, who is a prolific

yacht designer and won Olympic bronze in 1984

in the Flying Dutchman class

with Peter Allam. “We actually

started at the opposite end of

the line from the rest of the fleet

which paid us reasonably well in

the end. We got down to the

Needles middle of the fleet and

then there was almost no wind.

We bounced o£ a couple of rocks on the

Needles just for good measure and then it’s

tempting to stay out of the tide but we did a

couple of little tacks and thought no, we need

to be strong-minded and go out.

You always get a wind bend down

o£ Freshwater and if you sail along

under the cli£s it just leaves you in

a hole eventually.”

Richards has competed in the

Round the Island Race more times

than he can remember and said: “It’s

GBR SailGP team capsizes before race start

6 Yachts & Yachting August 2019