Saturday, March 19, 2011

CONTEST 33

Boat: CONTEST 33

Builder: Contest Yachts - Conyplex

Designer: Uus van Essen

More: CONTEST 33 Specifications

News:

Five giants side by side before The Race


Author: The Race Media

The first encounter between 5 of the 6 boats scheduled to take the start of The Race on December 31st was organised today, despite the poor weather conditions that were prevailing over Barcelona:

'For this day of speed tests, the challengers had to cope with East to East South East winds of force 4/5, falling in the middle of the day to force 3 to 4. These conditions were accompanied by a very overcast sky with rain', explained Gilles Chiori of Mйtйo Consult. 'It's the sea state that is the problem today', said Loпck Peyron, co-skipper of Innovation Explorer, 'the wind is falling but the sea remains very choppy, and the mainsail battens suffer a lot.'

To avoid damage to the boats a week before the start, the race managers decided to cancel the scheduled speed tests, but requested all the same that the boats group up and sail together off the Barcelona Port Olympic speed base.

The sun finally came out making the show magnificent. 'It is very emotional seeing the boats sailing together today,' said Bruno Peyron seeing notably PlayStation, the biggest racing multihull in the world neck and neck with Club Med of New Zealand skipper Grant Dalton and Team Adventure skippered by Cam Lewis. 'Even without it being a true race, one could see that the skippers quickly took up the challenge, and are raring to go', concluded the organiser of The Race.

This morning saw the arrival of Warta-Polpharma in Barcelona. Roman Paszke was good enough to take his boat out again to spend a few moments with the other challengers.

Team Legato is off Cape San Antonio just south of Valencia, or 177 miles from Barcelona, and is expected to arrive tomorrow morning. Contacted by telephone, Tony Bullimore said that all was well aboard.

More Information:

  • YachtsandYachting.com The Race Information Page

See also: CONTEST 32 CS for sale