Jim Clark & Kristy Hinze Clark’s American VPLP-Verdier 100 Comanche crossed the finish line of the RORC Caribbean 600 at 03.45 on Wednesday morning with an elapsed time of 40 hours 53 minutes 2 seconds, taking monohull line honours for the race and only 33 minutes outside the record time set by George David’s Rambler 100 in 2011.
Comanche Skipper, Ken Read said, “Comanche is built to come in first to finish and when Mother Nature co-operates we have the pedigree to break records,” was Ken Read’s reaction to the wind coming from the south-east making the leg from St Marten to Guadeloupe a beat, which for previous record holder – Rambler 100, was a fast fetch. “Going around these islands is a ball; whales breaching, volcanoes smoking, it doesn’t get any better than that. We will be back, I promise you – this is a great race.”
Earlier last night, after hurtling around the Caribbean at speeds in excess of 30 knots and topping out nearer 40, often barely a boat length apart, the epic duel between MOD70s Concise 10 and Phaedo3 came to a conclusion after 32 hours of hot racing. Lloyd Thornburg’s MOD70 Phaedo3, co-skippered by Brian Thompson crossed the finish line at Fort Charlotte in an elapsed time of 31 hours, 59 minutes, 04 seconds, breaking their own multihull race record set last year by 1 hour 34 minutes 26 seconds.
Barely out of sight of each other the entire race, Tony Lawson’s MOD70 Concise 10, skippered by Ned Collier Wakefield was just 9mins 52seconds behind. The superyachts in Falmouth Harbour heralded the arrival of Phaedo3 and Concise 10 with a cacophony of horns as hundreds of race fans gathered dockside to cheer the two teams to the dock.
