Mark Reynolds, who already has three Olympic medals and two Star World championships on his resume, has decided to expand his CV with a Volvo leg. Reynolds will be sailing with Team SEB for the 875-mile Miami to Baltimore leg of the Volvo race.
%image1%
“I’m looking forward to racing with Team SEB and seeing what I can contribute,” said Reynolds in a press release from Team SEB. “I’m sure it will be a tight race.” Reynolds replaces crewmember Scott Beavis, who has left Team SEB.
Reynolds, as well as being a Star champion, has spent some quality time on larger boats, including racing as a tactician for Phillippe Kahn’s Farr 40 program. With Reynolds aboard, Kahn and the crew of Pegasus won the right to be the U.S. Farr 40 representative in the cancelled Admiral’s Cup of 2001.
One of the reasons for this crew change may be the many tactical aspects of this short leg, which consists of hundreds of miles in the Gulf Stream and its associated weather features, and an inshore race up the Chesapeake, a bay of shallow water, fast currents, and many merchant vessels. http:www//teamseb.com
Maiden II, Tracy Edwards 110-foot Ollier catamaran will leave tomorrow (April 11) on a route from Cadiz, Spain to San Salvador in the Bahamas, the Route of Discovery.
While being called a training voyage, no one will complain if conditions allow Maiden II to beat the record set by Grant Dalton aboard Club Med, 10d:14h:53m:44s, set in June, 2000.
“This is a difficult record, as you have to have near perfect wind conditions.” says Edwards. “Were taking the view that the crossing is for training but if we get the conditions well go for it.”
Edwards will not be aboard due to sponsor negotiations so the big cat will be co-skippered by Adrienne Cahalan, and Helena Darvelid and a mixed crew of fifteen other sailors, including Brian Thompson, long-time crewmember on PlayStation.
The Royal Perth YC today announced the founding of a new international sailing event that sill have a total prize purse of $6.4 million U.S. The Antarctica Cup, a non-stop race through the Southern Ocean that will start and finish in Perth and leave Capes Leeuwin, Horn, and Good Hope to port and will start in December of 2004 and be held every two years.
The organizers of this event will supply Ron Holland-designed 25-meter boats. “My aim has been to create a new design for this great race that presents an exciting, high performance platform,” says Holland, “yet acknowledges the desirability of greater safety margins.” The cost of the boats will be included in the entry fee.
Entrants must be from yacht clubs representing their countries and the skippers and crews must be nationals of the country that theyre sailing for. There will be gates at various points on the course that are designed to keep the boats from straying up into the high latitudes where icebergs may be found.
The idea for this event came from Australian businessman Bob Williams, owner of an Australian basketball team and past owner of Freight Train, a pocket maxi with a successful racing career during the 1980s.
http://www.antarcticacup.com
