The Transat 2008
I am delighted to report that Plymouth has won the right to host the 2008 Transat after a close bidding battle with another UK City after the organizers decided to invite offers to stage the regatta.
Offshore Challenges the organizers felt that Plymouth was not committed to running such a prestigious event and threatened to move the Transat to another venue such as Portsmouth or Southampton.
It is great news that Plymouth responded to the threat although I suspect that it was only the involvement of Conrad Humphreys and Sutton Harbour Group that saved the day.
Well-known offshore yachtsman Humphreys fronted up Plymouth’s bid for the Transat and Sutton Harbour agreed to allow the whole race organization to be based in Sutton Harbour at the Barbican.
A Race Village will be built around the Barbican and all the competitors’ yachts will be based at Sutton Harbour. The event starts on the 11th May and the Race Village will be in operation for 10 days prior to race day.
All are welcome and if you have never seen any of the current generation of Open 60s or Trimarans then I would suggest spending a May day in Plymouth.
The future of the 60 ft trimaran class has been in doubt and it will be interesting to see who materializes at Plymouth but the other option is to open the fleet up to a new generation of 70 ft tris.
The 2004 start in Plymouth Sound was awesome with the trimarans rocketing off the line with 2 hulls out of the water and cascades of spray flying off the bows. There were no real starting maneuvers just sheeting in on the main and applying the power and in the blink of an eye they were gone.
Sailing any boat single-handed is a skill sailing 60 ft trimaran across 2800 miles of Atlantic Ocean is just simply phenomenal and I can’t wait for 2008.
No Comments for this post
No comments yet.
Leave a comment