Skipper:
Podium positions (on corrected time) | ||
1 2 3 | Sayula II (133:13:00) Adventure (135:08:00) Grand Louis (138:15:00) |
Course | ||
Leg 1 Leg 2 Leg 3 Leg 4 Distance Entries | Portsmouth - Cape Town Cape Town - Sydney Sydney - Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro - Portsmouth 27,000 nm 19 boats |
START DATE | LEG DISTANCE | WINNER |
08-Sep-73 07-Nov-73 29-Dec-73 6-11-Mar-74 | 6,650 6,550 8,370 5,430 | Adventure Sayula II Adventure Adventure |
The reality of offshore sailing’s dangers became apparent early on when Great Britain II was hit at night by a ferocious squall just a few days out from Portsmouth. Bernie Hosking was thrown overboard, but after a frenzied search, his silhouette was picked out in beam of the searchlight. The seas were cold and rough, but he was pulled back on deck by the crew and given a ‘hot’, rather than a ‘stiff’ drink. There was no brandy to administer since skipper Chay Blyth was operating a dry boat, but that was to change in subsequent legs.
Eric Tabarly’s Pen Duick VI, became the first boat to suffer a dismasting in the Whitbread Race. There was no possibility of repairs so a jury rig was built and the crew headed to Rio de Janeiro, some 1,200 miles to the southeast. By the time they arrived, a new spar had arrived from France and after it was fitted Pen Duick VI set off across the Atlantic once more, arriving two days before the restart from Cape Town.
Despite the lack of accurate tracking software, it was clear that Burton Cutter was a class apart in the first leg. Williams’ crew was the first to cross the finish line in Cape Town, taking just over six weeks to complete the leg, but fell to sixth on corrected time. It was the Royal Navy’s Adventure skippered by Patrick Bryans who finished just over 24 hours later who won overall. In second place was Adventure’s main rival Sayula II, whom she beat by more than three days on corrected time.
If the first leg was seen as a bit of a blast, the second quickly turned into a reality check as the fleet was battered as soon as they reached the southern ocean.
Burton Cutter started to break up and was forced into Port Elizabeth for repairs. The stringers and welding work were coming apart from the hull while the crew, which included Peter Blake, pumped to keep her afloat. The yacht ran off to Port Elizabeth where repairs were put in hand. They cruised to Rio and re-joined the race for Leg 4.
Paul Waterhouse had gone below on Tauranga and as he came back up Tauranga broached violently. The spinnaker boom broke at the mast end causing it to thrash around on the clew of the sail. He rushed forward to control the sails and retrieve what was left of the boom, but as he went, the boat changed direction once more and the sail suddenly took off. The sheets went taut under Waterhouse and threw him in the air, dumping him back on deck and then overboard.
The crew searched for almost four hours without success. Since he made no effort to grab a lifeline when he came down, it is likely Waterhouse was unconscious when he went overboard and would have drowned immediately.
Three days later, as the fleet battled against gales and heavy seas 350 miles west of the Kerguelen Islands, 33 Export skippers Dominique Guillet and Jean-Pierre Millet decided to replace the foresail with a smaller one. During the manoeuvre, both were hit by a breaking wave, which slammed the boat over to starboard. Guillet was missing.
Thirty minutes were spent looking for him, but deteriorating conditions forced Millet to abandon the search to preserve the safety of boat and crew. They withdrew from the race, the crew traumatised by Guillet’s death.
Adventure suffered problems with her rudder, depriving her crew of a second leg victory, and Great Britain II lost her mizzenmast. Otago also lost the top section of her mizzenmast.
Sayula’s fifth place across the finish in Sydney resulted in a win for the leg and an aggregate first on the two legs so far. Quite different boats were in the frame at this time, with Grand Louis in second beating Kriter by five hours on corrected time.
Within a few miles of leaving Sydney on Leg 3, Pen Duick VI was dismasted for the second time in the race.
Also for the second time, Bernie Hocking disappeared overboard Great Britain II. This time, with winds blowing force 5-6, the crew did not recover him despite a search that lasted more than two hours.
Blyth and his crew expressed their loss by sailing the boat hard and fast to Rio, taking line honours for the first time in the race.
The focal point of the leg was always going to be Cape Horn. The most famous landmark of all filled many crews with dread. In 1973, the number of sporting yachts that had survived this rounding numbered less than 10. That number would be more than doubled when the Whitbread fleet passed through.
At Cape Horn, HMS Endurance was standing by and a wad of a blank round fired as a salute to their colleagues pierced Adventure’s headsail.
The ride to Cape Horn was not the downwind slide many had expected – though there were sightings of 150-metre tall icebergs. With Cape Horn behind them, the fleet turned north towards the warmth of Rio de Janeiro. Great Britain II was the first to finish, followed by Second Life and Sayula II.
The start on the last leg had been staggered so the larger boats started later than the smaller ones. In theory, this would ensure the fleet finished together. To win the overall race, the British navy entry Adventure had to beat its Mexican rival Sayula II by three and a half days.
With 1,600 miles to go to Portsmouth, Adventure was becalmed for six hours, but then began to make progress in the right direction. She made good use of local knowledge. Off the Isle of Wight, she was again nearly becalmed and this time in a foul tide, so the crew dropped anchor with only 37 miles to go to the finish. Then some wind south of the Island was found and, in the darkness, Adventure crossed the finish line in third place, giving her the overall runner-up prize. Sayula II arrived in fourth place to take the first Whitbread Trophy title.
Five days earlier Great Britain II had claimed line honours, completing the course in 144 days - a record for a round-the-world passage at that time. Realising that the handicap system did not favour Great Britain II for overall victory, Chay Blyth’s aim had been to win line honours for each leg. On three of the four legs, she was the fastest boat and on corrected time she finished sixth.
David Bowen, Enrique Carlín, Fransisco Carlín, Paquita Carlín, Ramón Carlín, Ray Conrady, Roberto Cubas, Butch Dalrymple-Smith, John Hutchinson, Keith Lorence, Bob Martin, Adolfo Orinday, Lawrence Wale Tjerk M. Romke de Vries
CEA C. Abrahams, CPO M. Bird, Lt D. Budge, Lt A. Bolingbroke, Lt Cdr C.P.E. Brown, Lt Cdr J.P.G. Bryans, Ch Tech. P.N. Chowns, Sub Lt R.A.G. Clare, CPO M. Forrest, Lt Cdr S. Gray, Lt A. Higham, CPO H.J. Hyland, Lt Cdr A.A.M. Johnstone, Sub Lt R.J. Kingsnorth, Lt Cdr T. Laycock, LS P.J. Long, Cdr M. K. Matthews, CPO R. Mullender, Lt A.W. Netherclift, Sgt G. Norman, Lt Cdr F.S. Owens, Surg Lt S. Ormerod, CPO W.E. Porter, CEA M. Rose, MEA T.J. Sales, Cdr C.F. Seal, Lt M.C. Shirley, Lt Cdr M. Skene, LA D. Thompson, Lt R.A.S. Turner, PO M.J. Trotter, Sub Lt H. Trotter, Capt G.M.F. Vallings, Lt S. Van der Byl, Lt C.F.F. Watkins, Capt J.H. Wiltshire, Lt P. Wykeham-Martin, Inst Lt K. Richardson
Grand Louis
Gerard Beck, Gilles Berthelin, Bénédicte Lunven, Bruno Lunven, Löic Caradec, Jean-Michel Carpentier, Patrice Carpentier, Patrick Elies, Philippe Facque, Pieter Rens, Francois Thepaut, Franck van Beuningen, Michel Vanek, André Viant, Françoise Viant, Jean-Michel Viant, Sylvie Viant
Michael Austin, Philippe Bayle, Alain Benech, Pierre Bonnet, Armand Broyelles, Joel Charpentier, Georges Commarmond, Alain D'Auzac, Bernard Deguy, Jean-Louis Duboc, Michel Girard, Alain Gliksman, Ariane Grout, Jack Grout, Hughes Lallement, Bernard Lauvray, Pierre Lenormand, Michel Malinovsky, Jean-Claude Montesinos, F. A. de la Noe, Patrice Quesnel, Didier Roquet, Guy Schwartz, Gilles Vaton, Olivier Stern-Veyrin
Luigi Arzenati, Piero Bianchessi, Conrad Burge, Pierre Dagreves, Michel Drouart, Giorgio Falck, Luciano Ladavas, Nino Pecorari, Franco Pecorari, Giorgio Pecorari, Toio Piegieggoli, Jerome Poncet, Gigi Vaicava, Giovanni Verbini
Great Britain II
Pete Bates, Eric Blunn, Chay Blyth, Brian Daniels, Alec Honey, Eddie Hope, Bernard Hosking, Len Price, John Rist, Len Robertson, Mike Thompson, Alan Toones,
Second Life
Roddy Ainslie, Geoffrey Bush, Charles I. Butterworth, Richard Carlyle, Wendy Hinds, Rob James, Timothy A. Kershaw, Capt. A. W. King-Harman, Dr. Robin Leach, Christopher A. J., Lord W. B. Moulsdale, Frank Sheehan, John Stapleton, Alan Taphouse, John R. Whitfield
Paolo Bertoldi, Maurizio Curci, Paolo Grazioli, Constance Imbert, Alessandro Lojacono, Fransesco Longanesi Cattani, Carla Malingri, Franco Malingri, Doi Malingri di Bagnolo, Paolo Mascheroni, Carlo Mauri, Michel Meda, Christina Monti, Alberto Passi, Riccardo Tosti
British Soldier
Lt. P.R.G. Ash, Cpl A. C. Badrick, Maj R.G. Barton, WO II J.A. Bullock, Capt. G.I. Bye, Maj A.N. Carlier, Cpl. M.E. Cox, Maj J.A. Cuthill, Maj C. Davies, Maj J.T. Day, S/Sgt. J. Doherty, Capt D.M. Gill, L Cpl C. Edge, Maj L.D. Edinger, Capt. A.W.D. Edsor, Maj S.A. Edwards, Capt. D.T.I. Glyn Owen, S/Sgt. P.J.C. Green, F.O. M.J. Hayman, Lt R.A. Hill, L Cpl A.M. Hogton, Maj R.J. Knox, L Cpl J.R. Le Maitre, S/Sgt D.A. Leslie, Capt M.C. Lewin Harris, Lt R.J. Little, Cpl G.S. Marshall, Lt Col J. Myatt, S/Sgt P.D. Phillips, Maj G.C. Philp, Maj J.J.J. Phipps Flight, Lt T.W. Rimmer, WO II J.B. Rosson, Maj R.S.P. Tamlyn, Capt A.E. Truluck, Cpl P. Waterhouse, Sq Ldr R.K. Webster, Capt A.G. Whitfield
LouisGeorge Baitier, Serge Bays, Paolo Chamaz, John Dean, Patrice Ducourtioux, Jean-Noel Durand, Pascal Emeriau, Marco Galimberti, Robert Girardin, Edoardo Guzzetti, Yves Olivaux, Erik Pascoli, Zara Pascoli, Guy Piazzini, Yvon Redier, Vittorio Reggazola, Michel Ribet, Thierry Vanier, Paul Waterhouse
Bogdan Bogdzinski, Zygfryd Perlicki, Zbigniew Puchalski, Mackiewicz Ryszard, Bronislaw Tarnacki
Peter Addeson, Tom Addeson, Paul Audoire, Patrick Fierre, Dominique Guillet, Richard Heberling, Bruno La Salle, Jose Le Deliou, Daniel Millet, Jean-Pierre Millet, Roch Pescadere, Jacques Redier, Yvon Redier, Olivier Stern-Veyrin, Philipe Viellescase
Otago
Bohdan Berggrun, Zygmunt Choren, Witold Ciecholewski, Stanislaw Jakubczyk, Kazimierz Kurzydlo, Adam Michel, Iwona Pienkawa, Zdzislaw Pienkawa, Edwin Trzos
Peter von Danzig
Hein Anhold, Uli Blank, Gert Findel, Frederick Heineman, Maximilian Heinemann, Jan Peter, Jamaer Wilfried, Kollex Reinhard, Laucht Volker, Mackeprang Achim, Meyer Jürgen, Meyer Aki Müller-Deile, Tomas H. Rüter, Rudiger Steinbeck, Thomas Weber
Pen Duick VI
Michel Barré, François Bessieres, Charles Bonnay, Jean-Philippe Chaboud, Antoine Croyere, Jean-Pierre Dagues, Arnaud Dalhenx, Bernard Deguy, Olivier de Kersauson, Mickaël le Berre, Pierre Leboutet, Patrice Madillac, Patrick Meulemeester, Pierre Monsaingeon, Marc Pajot, Patrick Phelipon, Bernard Rubenstein, Éric Tabarly, Patrick Tabarly, Thierry Vanier
Burton Cutter
David Alan Williams, Sid Berkeley, Peter Blake, Barry Buchanan, Marco Chiara, Andrew Culley, Chris Edwards, Bill Elgie, Colin Forbes, Tom W. Moore, Jacques Redon, Paul Rosser, Nick Rowe, Alan Smith, John Tanner, Ricardo Vilarosa, Leslie Williams
M. Avery, W. J. Damerell, John Goodwin, Wilhelm Griitter, Peter Koehurst, Gerhard Last, Charles Smith, Yvonne van der Byl
Christian Aguesseau, Colin Berry, Pierre Chassin, Graeme Corlett, David Dean
Pen Duick III
Yves Allemant, M. C. Cruz, M. Cuiklinski, Nicola Egger, Jean-Claude Grigaux, J. Nebout, J. Pommaret, E. Riviere
The Ocean Race is often described as the longest and toughest professional sporting event in the world, sailing’s toughest team challenge and one of the sport’s Big Three events, alongside the Olympic Games and America’s Cup.
To truly understand the race, though, it’s better to think of it in a way the athletes who take part will recognise immediately. Put simply, The Ocean Race is an obsession, and many of the world's best sailors have dedicated years, even decades of their lives trying to win it.
Take Sir Peter Blake, who competed in the first edition of what was then the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1973-74 and came back again and again until he finally conquered his Everest, securing an overwhelming victory with Steinlager 2 in 1989-90. Only then was he able to fully turn his attention to other projects.
The race sits, just as it always has, at the intersection of human adventure, and world-class competition. Thanks to the work of the Onboard Reporters embedded with every team, fans are given a unique insight into just what it takes to win a race that is relentless in its demands – as teams give everything they have, 24 hours a day, in pursuit of the tiny advantages that can make all the difference.
The race’s concept is simple: it’s a round-the-clock pursuit of competitive edge and the ultimate ocean marathon, pitting the sport’s best sailors against each other across the world’s toughest waters. It’s relentless: the importance of winning, the adventure of life on board, the transformative effect on the sailors — all of these combine to give the race its power and depth.
The last edition of the race was the closest in history, with three teams virtually tied, approaching the finish line. After 126 days of racing spread across 11 legs, the winning margin for Charles Caudrelier’s Dongfeng Race Team was only 16 minutes. The top three teams were separated by just four points.
A total of 2.5 million people visited the Race Villages during the 2017-18 event, getting a first-hand taste of the action. Millions more followed the action on our digital platforms, television and via the news as the race set new high-marks for international coverage.
Now we enter a new era as the event continues to evolve. Two classes will compete in the 2022-23 edition of the race with the addition of the high-tech, foiling IMOCA 60 class adding a design and technical element. The one-design VO65 fleet will race for The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint Cup over three legs: Leg 1 from Alicante, Spain to Cabo Verde, Leg 6 from Aarhus, Denmark to The Hague in the Netherlands, and Leg 7 from The Hague to Genova, Italy.
Following the success of our ground-breaking and award-winning sustainability efforts in the last race, sustainability will continue to be a core value of the race as we go forward, as we redouble our efforts to restore ocean health and lead, inspire and engage on this critical issue.
The 14th edition of The Ocean Race started from Alicante, Spain on January 15th 2023, and will finish in Genova, the Grand Finale, in Italy early in the summer of 2023. The race visits nine iconic cities around the globe over a six-month period (Alicante, Spain - Cabo Verde - Cape Town, South Africa - Itajaí, Brazil - Newport, RI, USA - Aarhus, Denmark - Kiel Fly-By, Germany - The Hague, the Netherlands - Genova, Italy) and features a leg with the longest racing distance in the 50-year history of the event - a 12,750 nautical mile, one-month marathon from Cape Town, South Africa to Itajaí, Brazil. The IMOCA fleet of mixed crews will pass all three great southern Capes - Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, Cape Horn - non-stop, for the first time.
Although at its most fundamental level the perfect strategy for winning The Ocean Race comes down to simply scoring more points than your competitors, there is much more involved in emerging victorious from a five-month, 32,000-nautical mile (36,825-mile / 60,000-kilometre) race around the world.
The Ocean Race uses a high points scoring system with the winning team on an offshore leg awarded points equal to the number of entries in the race. Second place gets points equal to the number of entries minus one – and so on down the finishing order.
However, double points are up for grabs on two of the legs: the monster 12,750-nautical mile (14,672-mile / 23,613-kilometre) Southern Ocean passage on Leg 3 from Cape Town, South Africa to Itajaí in Brazil – the longest in the race’s 50-year history – and the transatlantic crossing on Leg 5 from US city Newport, Rhode Island to Aarhus in Denmark.
The points on Leg 3 will be split between the order in which the teams pass the longitude of 143 degrees east – and their finishing order at the end of the leg. On Leg 5 the points will be doubled based on the teams’ finishing order on the 3,500-nautical mile (4,028-mile / 6,482-kilometre) transatlantic crossing.
With the rules dictating that teams which fail to finish a leg shall receive no points, the crews will need to manage their instinct to push their boats and themselves flat out with the need to avoid sustaining damage that might slow them down or even force them to retire.
As well as avoiding damage the sailors need to avoid incurring penalty points that can be awarded for any transgressions to the race’s rules, such as entering race imposed exclusion zones, measurement violations, and anything else deemed to be a breach of the regulations.
The final standings at the end of the race are determined based on the teams’ total score for all of the legs – less any penalty points. The team with the highest series score wins with others ranked accordingly. Ties on overall points are throughout the race broken in favour of the boat with the highest overall position in the In-Port Series.
In The Ocean Race 2017-18 after racing for eight months around the world the top three teams were so close on points starting the final leg from Gothenburg, Sweden to The Hague in the Netherlands that the eventual winner – China’s Dongfeng Race Team – was not decided until the last few miles to the finish line.
Eleanor Beardsley
After sailing 24,000 miles nonstop in a nearly three-month journey, competitors in the Vendée Globe — an around-the-world solo yacht race — are expected to finish at a French port on Wednesday.
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It is over 40 years since the first crewed round the world race, the Whitbread Round the World Race, now now the Volvo Ocean Race. Barry Pickthall remembers the early days
The Whitbread round the World race
Sailing pioneers Francis Chichester, Alec Rose and Robin Knox-Johnston had already done it single-handedly, but a race round the world for fully crewed yachts was thought a step too far in the 1960s. Any number of blazered armchair sailors said it could never be done.
Yet a meeting between the Royal Naval Sailing Association and brewery boss Sam Whitbread in a Portsmouth pub led to 17 disparate crews on the start line for the first Whitbread Round the World Race in September 1973.
Only 14 went the distance and a heavy price price was paid in lives and broken boats. But lessons from this and subsequent Whitbread races held every four years for the next three decades pioneered many of the advances now commonplace on cruising yachts.
Preparation
In 1973, preparedness meant making it to the startline with the crew and food on board. When Sir Alec Rose fired the cannon from Southsea Castle, many crews were too busy still finishing their boats to think about what lay ahead.
Aboard Les Williams’s Burton Cutter crew were cutting wood to make berths as they sailed out of the Solent. The 80-footer was built in Poole by a company more used to making fuel tanks than boats and there had been no time even to hoist her sails before the race. For Peter Blake, then a keen but green 25-year-old, the experience was a baptism of fire. “We had a big drum of rope in the cockpit and I was cutting off the sheets to size each time we hoisted a new sail,” he recalled years later.
Improvisation was the key. Arriving late for measurement at HMS Vernon , Burton Cutter was found to be floating down by the bow. Skipper Williams was at a loss as to how to reballast her in the short time available. Not so owner Alan Smith. A West Country businessman who was more hunting and shooting than sailing, he simply rang up his gunsmith and arranged for lead shot to be poured into her skeg.
Burton Cutter was first into Cape Town, pioneering an upwind route through the South Atlantic High when others chose the longer trade route to Brazil. But the boat began to break up soon after heading into the Southern Ocean and only rejoined the race on the last leg from Rio back to Portsmouth.
Four years later, few lessons had been taken on board. In 1977 Williams co-skippered the British maxi Heath’s Condor with Robin Knox-Johnston. Again, little time was left for sailing before the race and the crew were still rigging her experimental carbon fibre mast on the eve of the start. Little wonder, then, that they lost it overboard during the first leg.
Contrast this with the efforts of an then-unknown Dutchman, Cornelis van Rietschoten. After commissioning Sparkman & Stephens to design a boat to beat Ramon Carlin’s 1973-74 race winner, the Swan 65 Sayula II , he embarked on a transatlantic crossing to test the boat and crew, plus a return race (which they won) and a Fastnet. Flyer and her crew were honed to such a high level compared to the rest of the fleet the race was almost won already.
Van Rietschoten returned with a second Flyer four years later, this one a Frers-designed maxi built expressly to win line honours. Again preparation paid off – the crew became the only team in the history of the event to win both line and handicap honours.
Van Rietschoten not only repeated the pre-race trials, he funded a research programme that had far-reaching effects. First, he commissioned Britain’s National Weather Centre to condense a century of weather statistics. These went into a computer program to predict the likely local scenarios, particularly in the Southern Ocean.
The program wasn’t a complete success, but the lessons learned from the research, along with coaching given by weather guru David Houghton, meant the crew only got the weather ‘wrong’ once. In the previous race the first Flyer crew found themselves on the wrong side of pressure systems 14 times – and still won.
During the first two races crews suffered badly from colds and flu in the Southern Ocean because short bursts of activity led to sweating that then chilled on the body under layers of fleece and oilskins. The challenge was to ‘wick’ sweat away from the skin. Working with Musto and the National Aerospace Laboratory at Farnborough, the Flyer crew helped to develop the first three-layer system, which went on to revolutionise how manufacturers made their sailing clothing.
The third improvement centred on rigging. During the first two races, yachts were rigged with 1×19 wire. By 1981 rod rigging was in vogue, with the rigging bent at the spreader tips. Van Rietschoten, an engineer at heart who was reluctant to change from a ketch to a sloop rig, was unconvinced.
He commissioned Dutch Aerospace laboratories to develop a discontinuous rigging system with individual rods between spar and spreader tips that could articulate at each connection point. The industry thought this was over the top until three maxis lost their rigs early that season. Navtec took up the idea and offered it as standard.
That was too late for Peter Blake’s first New Zealand entry. Ceramco New Zealand set out from Portsmouth with continuous rod rigging and off Ascension Island it failed at a spreader tip, leading to her crew making the longest voyage in history under jury rig.
The Whitbread round the World race 1985/86
Watch systems
The first Whitbread races were laissez faire events compared to today’s full-on racing. Crews tended not to fly spinnakers at night for fear of mishandling them and watch systems on some boats were very laid-back. Of Burton Cutter in 1973, Blake recalled: “We had a game of backgammon running below and anyone still in the game was excused watches. It put a lot of pressure on the losers, who finished up not only out of pocket, but doing more than their fair share of the work.”
They knew how to hold parties during the early years. With none of the crew and PR regimes that police Volvo raceboats today, hedonistic events were fuelled by the sponsor’s brew and an ethic among crews that what goes on on tour stays on tour. In a libertine era, life ashore was played out to the full.
The most notable parties – or at least those that can be written about – include a riotous affair at a local yacht club during the 1973-74 race, when Clare Francis led a conga straight into the swimming pool. That night ended in a haze of tear gas as riot police charged into this millionaire’s oasis to clear out the prostitutes.
Peter Blake inaugurated the Garden Party aboard Ceramco New Zealand in 1982 at a stopover at Mar del Plata, Argentina, but the most memorable event was on Lion New Zealand four years later during the penultimate stop, then changed to Punta del Este, Uruguay. Called on to bring a plant to the boat, guests excelled themselves by denuding hotels and restaurants of every potplant not bolted down. One crew even arrived pulling a palm tree behind their VW transporter, having ripped it out of the harbour boulevard.
Death is never mentioned yet never far from any crewman’s mind, especially when yachts are riding on a knife-edge between windswept and wipeout in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties. But ultimate danger also heightens the challenge for these sailors – it is what has always attracted a special breed of sportsmen and women to the Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race.
The dangers quickly became apparent when untested crews entered the Southern Ocean in 1973. Paul Waterhouse was the first to lose his life. He was lost overboard from Tauranga 12 days after the fleet left Cape Town. Four days later co-skipper Dominique Guillet disappeared overboard from the 60ft ketch 33 Export . On the ninth day of Leg 3, Chay Blyth encouraged his Great Britain II crew to make more sail after a southerly buster passed. Tidying up the foredeck, Bernie Hosking pulled on a sail-tie caught in the forestay. It gave way and he too was lost. Three deaths in that first race were three too many and the race might have ended then had the Press had its way.
There have been two more deaths since, both from falling overboard. Each was tragic, but the Whitbread and Volvo races have been responsible for huge strides made in safety equipment in the four decades since. Lifejackets, harnesses, MOB tracking devices, immersion suits and sprayhoods have helped to extend life expectancy from just a few minutes to half an hour or more in the Southern Ocean, a legacy that overshadows the best parties.
This is an extract from a feature in the November 2014 issue of Yachting World
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Steinlager 2 skippered by Peter Blake won the race easily. For the first time since 1981–82 (when the race comprised of four legs), the victor won every leg in their division (albeit closely chased by both Grant Dalton’s Fisher & Paykel NZ and Pierre Fehlmann’s Merit entries). The vast difference in speed and capability of the many different boats involved in the 1989 to 1990 race lead to the creation of a committee to examine the commission of a Whitbread class boat for use in future races.
Many of the Maxi yachts in this year’s race were nearly twice the size (LOA) of the smallest, and carried well over twice the sail area. The net result of this was that many of the smaller boats finished the longer legs more than ten days after the leg winner. In the overall results, the last finisher was some 52 days behind Blake’s Steinlager 2 128-day aggregate time. In addition, the cost of the big yachts was becoming too expensive to fund – even for the well sponsored teams like Steinlager , Rothmans and Merit . Eventually, the new class would be called the Whitbread 60.
The race featured the first all-woman crew on Tracy Edwards’ Maiden . Although in a much smaller boat than many of their male counterparts the women fared well, claiming two leg victories in Division D. Tracy Edwards was named yachtsman of the year and appointed MBE. In 2018, a feature-length documentary was made about the team’s participation in the race.
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The Ocean Race. The Ocean Race is a yacht race around the world, held every three or four years since 1973. Originally named the Whitbread Round the World Race after its initiating sponsor, British brewing company Whitbread, [ 1] in 2001 it became the Volvo Ocean Race after Swedish automobile manufacturer Volvo took up the sponsorship, [ 1] and ...
The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is a biennial sailing race that takes paying amateur crews on one or more legs of a circumnavigation of the globe in 11 specially-designed identical yachts owned by Clipper Ventures. ... The 2015-2016 race saw the first fatalities in the history of the Clipper race, both on the same boat CV21. [50]
Race History. Since the first Clipper Race crew left Plymouth in October 1996 on board eight 60-foot yachts, the race's increase in size is almost immeasurable. Today more than 5,000 people and three generations of Clipper ocean racing fleets have competed in what is known to be the world's toughest ocean racing challenge.
The Clipper Race is one of the biggest challenges of the natural world and an endurance test like no other. With no previous sailing experience necessary, before signing up for the intensive training programme, it's a record-breaking 40,000 nautical mile race around the world on a 70-foot ocean racing yacht. The next edition will be the ...
The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race was conceived in 1995 by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston [1] and together with William Ward (CEO), founded Clipper Ventures, a company that would run the race. The race takes paying amateur crews on one or more legs of a circumnavigation of the globe in specially designed yachts owned by Clipper Ventures.
The Ocean Race is the world's premier offshore race, an exceptional test of sailing prowess and human endeavour, which started over 37 years ago as the Whitbread Round the World Race. The Ocean Race crews will experience life at the extreme as they race day and night for more than 20 days at a time, living on freeze-dried food and combating the harshest weather conditions the planet can offer.
The Vendée Globe is a single-handed (solo) non-stop round the world yacht race. [1] [2] The race was founded by Philippe Jeantot in 1989, [3] and since 1992 has taken place every four years.It is named after the Département of Vendée, in France, where the race starts and ends.The Vendée Globe is considered an extreme quest of individual endurance and the ultimate test in ocean racing.
By offering a trophy for the first person to sail solo non-stop around the world via the five great capes and a £5000 UK Pounds Price for the fastest time, the Paper created an instant race and a great story to increase circulation. Nine colourful characters with varying sailing skills headed off at various times in a strange collection of yachts.
Fifty years on, history of the Whitbread Round the World Race has become a history of ocean racing itself. When it began from Portsmouth back in 1973, no one had raced a fully crewed yacht around the world before, navigation was rudimentary, communications spasmodic, clothing was basic and man-overboard rescue techniques, theoretical.
08 August 2023. For the first time in its 27-year history, the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race will be making a stop in Scotland when it sails to Oban during its upcoming edition. Clipper Race crew will experience the breath-taking beauty of this West Coast town and a warm Highlands welcome when they visit in July 2024 - the penultimate ...
Kirsten Neuschafer wins 2022 Golden Globe Race and makes history. Kirsten Neuschafer has become the first woman to win a solo, round the world yacht race after winning the 2022 Golden Globe Race. Kirsten Neuschafer made it very clear from the start that she was aiming to win the 2022 Golden Globe Race. And now the South African skipper has ...
Golden Globe Race. The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race was a non-stop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht race, held in 1968-1969, and was the first non-stop round-the-world yacht race. The race was controversial due to the failure of most competitors to finish the race and because of the apparent suicide of one entrant, Donald Crowhurst ...
The start of the 14th edition of The Ocean Race will follow the Reyes holiday period in Spain, and sees the foiling IMOCA fleet departing on a 32,000 nautical mile (60,000 km) race around the world. The first leg is a 1,900 nautical mile sprint from Alicante to Cabo Verde, the first time the Race has stopped at the African archipelago.
Overview. The first Whitbread Round the World Race started on 8 September 1973 on a fine, mild Saturday morning in Portmsouth. A total of 324 sailors took part, among 19 competing teams. The start gun was fired by Sir Alec Rose, who five years earlier (1967-68) had sailed round the world singlehanded, stopping only twice.
0. The Ocean Race is a fully crewed round the world race originally known as the Whitbread Round the World Race, then the Volvo Ocean Race. The crewed around the world race with stopovers has ...
The Ocean Race is the toughest test of a team in sport - and sailing's greatest round-the-world challenge. Since 1973, winning the Race has been an obsession for the world's best sailors - Olympic champions, record breakers and pioneers. With teams racing through the most extreme spots on the planet - closer to the astronauts in the Space Station than anyone else on land - and calling ...
After sailing 24,000 miles nonstop in a nearly three-month journey, competitors in the Vendée Globe — an around-the-world solo yacht race — are expected to finish at a French port on Wednesday.
The Whitbread round the World race. Sailing pioneers Francis Chichester, Alec Rose and Robin Knox-Johnston had already done it single-handedly, but a race round the world for fully crewed yachts ...
The history of the race known as - Whitbread Round the World Race (1973-2001) - Volvo Ocean Race (2001-2019) - The Ocean Race (Upcoming in 2021-2022) Sir Peter Blake, winner of the 1989/90 Whitbread Round the World Race on Steinlager II, holding the Whitbread Trophy aloft. In 1969 Robin Knox-Johnston won The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race and ...
The Ocean Globe Race (OGR) is a fully crewed retro race in the spirit of the 1973 Whitbread Round the World Race. It marks the 50th anniversary of the original event. It's an eight-month adventure around the world for ordinary sailors on normal yachts. Racing ocean-going GRP production yachts designed before 1988, there will be no computers ...
The 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race was run from Southampton to Southampton in 1989-90. It was run with several classes of yacht. Steinlager 2 skippered by Peter Blake won the race easily. For the first time since 1981-82 (when the race comprised just four legs), the victor won every leg in their division (albeit closely chased by both Grant Dalton's Fisher & Paykel NZ and Pierre ...
The 2023-24 race edition will mark the fifth time Fremantle has made an appearance on the race route and will see a fourth visit to Airlie Beach. Making its debut as a Host Port will be Newcastle, which will be the second stop for yachts as they navigate around Australia. Mark Light, Race Director at Clipper Ventures, said "We are really happy ...
The 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race started from Southampton and was run with several classes of yacht. Steinlager 2 skippered by Peter Blake won the race easily.For the first time since 1981-82 (when the race comprised of four legs), the victor won every leg in their division (albeit closely chased by both Grant Dalton's Fisher & Paykel NZ and Pierre Fehlmann's Merit entries).