mercoledì 30 novembre 2011

Global Ocean Race Leg 2 starts with the noon day gun


At 12:00 GMT (14:00 local) on Tuesday, the six, double-handed Class40s in the Global Ocean Race 2011-12 (GOR) crossed the start line of Leg 2 from Cape Town to Wellington, New Zealand. Ahead of the fleet are approximately 7,000 miles and around one month of racing through the high latitudes of the Indian Ocean with a finish line ETA shortly after Christmas. At 09:30 local time, the V&A Harbourmaster, Steven Bentley, stood-in as the GOR fleet’s chaplain, reading from Luke Chapter 8 – a verse advising sailors on a sinking ship that faith in yourself is valuable throughout life - before the boats left North Wharf and motored through Alfred Basin and Victoria Basin, exiting the V&A Waterfront Marina for a rendezvous at the committee boat off the city’s breakwater.

With a band of 20 knot breeze in the northern end of Table Bay, the 86ft GOR Committee Boat, Pradera Blue, anchored and the pin end of the line was set for a reaching start. Running the start line on behalf of Royal Cape Yacht Club, Di Hutton-Squire – mother of Phesheya-Racing co-skipper, Phillippa Hutton-Squire – fired the start gun at noon (10:00 GMT) with Conrad Colman and Sam Goodchild on Akilaria RC2 Cessna Citation first across, overtaken quickly by Leg 1 winners, New Zealand father-and-son duo of Ross and Campbell Field crossing the line on port reach close to the bow of the Committee Boat with their Tyker 40, BSL.

Heading immediately offshore, BSL and Cessna Citation – just metres apart – sailed to leeward of the enormous ocean-going tug, Fairmount Glacier, anchored in the middle of the course with Halvard Mabire and Miranda Merron on Pogo 40S² Campagne de France sailing to windward of the obstruction, followed by the Italian-Spanish duo of Marco Nannini and Hugo Ramon on their Akilaria Financial Crisis, squeezing under the vessel’s blunt bow as the breeze slackened across the race course.

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