Tuesday 2 February 2010

2010 Superyacht Cup, Antigua

Three days of wonderful racing in the strong warm caribbean winds.

Day 1
"It was a day for the ketches" commented Mike Quilter on Ranger, "It may be a small fleet but they are all excellent boats, and without being able to use the genniker we just could not keep up. We finished third".

Day 2
The J-Boat Ranger numbers among her traditional themes no safety rails when racing in these heavy seas. It truly doesn’t get much better than this, even in the rarified atmosphere of superyacht racing, than the thrill of racing on a gorgeous, and very competitive Super-J in one of the worlds most scenic racing venues.
Today, she proved that she’s still at heart a gazelle of the sea, powering through rough waters, taking on 30 knot winds, and seemingly easily achieving over 15 knots of boat speed. Despite the fact that the conditions required Ranger, for the first time ever during a race, to reef in her mainsail, she managed to also get up a staysail on the downwind runs, and the entire contingent of 35 crew and guests, scampered back and forth to the rails on seemingly endless tacks.
As for the lucky guests aboard today, Ranger’s skipper Alastair Tait, called the day’s racing “moist”, while long-time racing crewmember Paul Collen perhaps more accurately said “this is the wettest day we’ve ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, had.” Yet the full-time crew made sure that we all stayed dry in perfectly matching kit, and home-made cookies were served on a regular basis.

Day 3
Ranger and P2 had a tight battle all day, crossing tacks several times. At one point P2 looked to be clear ahead, but Ranger gained on the last upwind leg, beating them by just over 3 minutes.

See: http://www.thesuperyachtcup.com/ for full report.
1st Visione - 4 points
2nd Sojana - 10 points
3rd Ranger - 10 points