Yachts & Yachting magazine February 2020

There is still time, as you read this, to vote in the Club of the Year competition, which we run with the RYA. We had a tough job whittling down the clubs that applied to the shortlist you can see on our website. The harder job, however, is now yours! Your votes will decide the winner of the Club of the Year, which is announced – always to a packed house – on the main stage at the RYA Dinghy Show, which runs from 29 February to 1 March. You can find the voting page and details for each club via yachtsandyachting.co.uk. British 470 sailor Chris Grube, interviewed this month, makes an interesting point about dinghy sailing being the “ultimate sport”, demanding a combination of the highest levels of fitness and…

The British Yachting Awards, organised by Yachts & Yachting and our sister title Sailing Today, were presented at a ceremony at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in December. Guest speaker was Dee Caffari and the audience included many other big names from the international racing and cruising worlds. The winners were announced by Yachts & Yachting editor Rob Peake, after 21,000 votes came in from around the world for the shortlisted candidates. The British Yachting Awards are the only UK sailing awards voted for by the public alone. The full list of winners was featured in last month’s Yachts & Yachting and can be found on our website yachtsandyachting.co.uk Among the winners there was a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award for Key Yachting’s Paul Heys, received by his widow Marie-Claude and Paul’s daughters Gemma…

After almost 29 days at sea, Franck Cammas and Charles Caudrelier, accompanied by media man Yann Riou, won the Brest Atlantiques on 4 December on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild. The event saw four of the big Ultim trimarans race from Brest, to points off Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town and back again. Maxi Edmond de Rothschild covered 17,084 miles at an average speed of 24.57 knots. Rivals MACIF and Actual Leader were second and third, while Sodebo 3 abandoned the race after a forced stop in Cape Town with keel damage. Cammas and Caudrelier narrowly won line honours in the Rolex Fastnet Race earlier this year as Maxi Edmond de Rothschild pipped MACIF to the finish by 58 seconds. Despite various problems en route, the success of the Brest Atlantiques has been seen…

Racing two-handed with Jeremy Waitt, Richard Palmer’s JPK 10.10 Jangada scored the best corrected time under IRC to win the RORC Transatlantic Race overall, having completed the 3,000nm course in 17 Days, 10hrs. Jangada is the first two-handed team to win the RORC Transatlantic trophy, as well as the smallest boat to do so. “This win absolutely exceeded all our expectations – a great start to the season!” said Palmer. “The competition out there certainly gave us a run for our money – Childhood 1 was doing 20 knots and we could never match that speed, and Pata Negra 12 knots, but we just said ‘bring it on’ and we raced hard all the way to the finish. “Persistence and perseverance were the key to keep going for each three-hour watch. It was…

The RYA is on the hunt for sailors and boat owners interested in the new double-handed mixed offshore event that will debut at the Paris 2024 Olympics. The new Olympic discipline will see mixed pairs battle it out over a four-day offshore race off Marseilles. With planning for Paris 2024 already underway, the RYA has registered an entry for a British team in the 2020 World Sailing Offshore World Championship (OWC), held in conjunction with the Rolex Middle Sea Race. The RYA would now like to hear from any motivated and experienced sailors interested in trying double-handed offshore sailing, and they are also keen to hear from any boat owners who may either be looking for a racing partner or prepared to loan or charter a suitable boat to others.…

“A wave caught us and I went straight over the side. I was being dragged at seven knots and that is a moment when you think about a few things, when you are in the middle of the ocean. The survival gene kicks in fairly quickly and it was a good bit of team work to get back on board. I have a few bruises but I don’t think Richard was too impressed as I was slowing the boat down! When I was safely back on board, Richard said: ‘Shall we have a cup of tea?’ I replied: ‘Let’s get the spinnaker back up first!’” Jeremy Waitt after falling overboard off Jangada in the RORC Transatlantic (see story to the left). He was clipped on at the time, about 1,000 miles…