Thanks to Sailing Scuttlebutt Europe for the following article (I've reposted the full article as I cant link the article directly):
http://www.scuttlebutteurope.com/
Bill Gibbs couldn't stop smiling when he said, "We've done this race 14 times and we've never seen the wind this good."
Max Phelps said, "It took us four hours to sail the last two miles."
Was this the same race? In the Lexus Newport to Ensenada Yacht Race it depended on what boat you were on. The fastest finished soon enough to seize the glory; the slowest suffered some agony of windless drifting, but only near the end.
At mid-day Saturday, about 180 of the 203 starters had finished. That remarkable tally was largely attributed to the wind holding strong well past the border until entering Todos Santos Bay. The 66th running of the 126-nautical mile race from Newport Beach to Mexico's Baja California peninsula teased several boats with visions of records.
Howard Enloe's Loe Real, a Jenn 60 trimaran, became the only boat besides the late Steve Fossett's 60-foot Stars & Stripes catamaran in 1998 to finish before sundown Friday, just after 7 p.m.---but missed Fossett's record of 6 hours 46 minutes 30 seconds by 17 minutes 21 seconds with a clocking of 7:03:51.
Not only that, but with his minus-205 handicap, Loe Real owed Gibbs' Afterburner about an hour and 40 minutes, and the 52-foot catamaran blew in about 43 minutes later with plenty of time to spare to claim the race's biggest prize: the President of USA Trophy for best corrected time overall, including multi- and monohulls.
First five finishers
1. Loe Real (ORCA; Jenn 60 trimaran), Howard Enloe, Silver Gate YC, 7 hours, 3 minutes, 51 seconds (corrected handicap time 14:10:56).
2. Afterburner (ORCA; 52' catamaran), Bill Gibbs, Pierpont Bay YC, 7:47:11 (CT 13:08:01).
3. Go Cart (ORCA), Chris Slagerman, California YC, 10:00:50 (CT 13:54:10).
4. Bad Pak (Maxi), Tom Holthus, San Diego YC, 10:58:30 (CT 13:54:10).
5. Medicine Man (Andrews 63), Long Beach YC, 11:35:59 (CT 15:02:14).
Full results:
http://newporttoensenada.com/race_info/results
Good to see this old Tri still going strong.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually a Jeanneau 60, designed by VPLP, a French based naval architectural firm founded by Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot-Prévost.
Waterworld
In 1994 VPLP designed the racing trimaran made famous by the movie Waterworld starring Kevin Costner. Two 60-foot (18 m) trimarans were built at Jeanneau’s racing division (Jeanneau Techniques Avancées),[3] one a conventional ]trimaran capable of speeds in excess of 30 kn (56 km/h) and a second boat with unconventional features that allowed it to transform for certain scenes in the movie and was used for most of the onboard and special effects scenes.
I had the pleasure of sailing on her many days during the production in Hawaii.
Thanks, there were actually a few trimarans built to this design including Steve Fosset's Lakota which was originally sailed by Florence Arthaud as Group Pierre 1er and lived on as Steve Fossett's Lakota, and later as charter boat in Sweden, now La Rochelle.
ReplyDeleteIt's now on the market again now a real performance bargain for the right person if they can cope with the high cost of ownership.
I've heard Loe Real was actually rebuilt from the sound stage version of the two trimarans not the sailing one but I'm not sure.
It's a pity they just missed out on the record maybe next Newport to Ensenada race they will get it.