Yachting World January 2021

Online www.yachtingworld.com YouTube Yachting World Facebook @yachtingworld twitter @yachtingworldmagazine If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that even the most carefully crafted plans can be scattered to the four winds in a moment. Although as sailors, we probably knew that already. So many decisions have been postponed, trips cancelled, and schedules rearranged that there is something very reaffirming about the ARC rally steadfastly setting off on its annual crossing to St Lucia. The numbers of entrants may have been smaller, but for each boat taking part the adventure certainly is not. Some crews kept their resolve to cross the Atlantic in 2020 because it was a long-held dream they did not want to deviate from. For others it was a reaction to a year quite unlike any other. The D’Avenas family’s…

The old ones are the best… this incredible image taken by Gilles Martin-Raget during the 2002 Course des Phares has just won the Mirabaud Yacht Racing Image Award’s accolade of ‘Photograph of the Century’. It shows Loïck Peyron sailing the Orma 60 trimaran Fujifilm II in ‘Le trou du diable’, south of Ushant, in Brittany. An international jury said it was ‘without doubt an iconic image’. Solo sailor Sam Goodchild checks the telltales on his Class 40 at dusk. This shot is from Rick Tomlinson’s Portfolio Calendar and was actually taken by his son James who was invited to join Sam for the Channel Race to Cherbourg. “This was taken just after sunset,” James explains. “The camera was attached to the boat with a clamp and a long exposure is…

Tall ships return to Falmouth Around 40 tall ships will assemble in Falmouth this summer for the start of the Tall Ships Race, Magellan Elcano 500 Series. This will be the sixth time the Cornish town has hosted the race and its programme during August 2021 will include a Parade of Sail before the fleet embarks on the first leg to A Coruña in Spain. Burling wins Olsson prize New Zealand sailor Peter Burling has been named the 2020 winner of the Magnus Olsson prize, given to an individual who has made an indelible contribution to sailing and named after the legendary Swedish Whitbread/Volvo sailor Magnus ‘Mange’ Olsson. Oyster’s Grand Tourer 885 Oyster has a first performance version of its 885 in build in its Southampton facility. Inspired by cars…

The ARC transatlantic rally set two contradictory new benchmarks in November. The 2020 fleet was by far the smallest in the event’s 34-year history, with just 52 yachts in the ARC and 24 in the ARC+ via Cape Verde, yet it was globally one of the largest mass participation sailing events of 2020, with over 400 crew setting sail. The ARC, which runs across 2,700-miles from Gran Canaria to St Lucia, had around a third of its usual numbers of participants. While the crews will be welcomed straight into St Lucia after spending at least 14 days at sea, quarantine requirements for family, friends or guests wanting to join later made it too difficult for many, and charter and race yachts were largely absent. A majority of the crews who…

After years of planning to overcome practical and physical difficulties the rest of us could not imagine, 23-year-old Natasha Lambert realised a childhood dream in November when she crossed the start line of the ARC transatlantic rally. Lambert, who has had quadriplegic cerebral palsy since birth, was introduced to sailing at the age of nine and, after meeting Ellen MacArthur, has harboured a dream to cross oceans. She persuaded her non-sailing family, dad Gary, mum Amanda and 14-year-old sister Rachel, to go on the adventure with her. They are sailing with four others, extra carers for Natasha and a Yachtmaster Instructor/Examiner friend from Cowes, Mike Acton. Lambert controls the boat using ‘sip and puff’ controls with plastic tubes mounted on a helmet. She first used this system, built by her…

One crewmember drowned and three others were rescued on 7 November when French sailor Régis Guillemot’s 50ft Marsaudon TS5, Hallucine, capsized off Portugal. The catamaran was on the way from France to the Canary Islands to start the ARC rally, on which it won line honours in 2019, when it was reported to have hit an object in the water and overturned ‘in seconds’. Guillemot, a highly experienced sailor and former competitor in the Route du Rhum solo transatlantic race, set off his EPIRB at around 2230 on 6 November. Hallucine was said to have been sailing in winds of around 16-20 knots around 120 miles west of Vigo when the boat capsized. Guillemot reportedly stated that the boat had hit an object in the water. A crewmember on watch…