New records set at Vasco race
A Westville father and daughter sailing team helped set a new record onboard the PYC Dusky during this year's race.
IN the Point Yacht Club’s 46th Vasco da Gama, a new record was set and another one was broken in the thrilling race.
Overall line honours and the title holders of the new multihull record, the crew of SmartTri40 co-skippered by Theunis Potgieter and Sean Jones bolted through the finish line in a dazzling time of 42 hours, 58 minutes and 53 seconds.
An exhilarated Sean Jones said, “It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Never in my 40 years of competing in the Vasco race have I experienced a race like this with such consistent weather. It was downwind all the way. The excitement onboard was just phenomenal.”
The crew of four sprinted down to East London in 23 hours, clocking a top speed of 24.8knots with the breeze recording at around 37knots, “We didn’t have any up-to-date weather info onboard, so when we checked the weather before we left, our plan was to stay inshore and run down with the current but we just ran out of breeze. It took 23hours to do the first three quarters of the race to East London, and another 23 hours to finish the last 100NM. That is perhaps the only thing I would have changed, the routing, so that we didn’t sail into the holes. Everything else was absolutely fantastic. What I would call champagne sailing, great fun.”
The small fleet that competed in the epic 400NM race traversed some of the most treacherous coastline in the world and all were safely docked near Algoa Bay after the unique race.
The next major event for the Point Yacht Club is the club’s 125th birthday celebration, so it is fitting to see records tumble in this milestone year for the club.
Results:
1. SmartTri40 (Sean Jones/Theunis Potgieter) 42 hours, 58 minutes, 53 seconds.
2. Rocket (Herbert Karolius) 44 hours, 1 minute and 53 seconds.
3. PYC Dusky (Jon Marshall) 49 hours, 43 minutes and 29 seconds.
4. Benguela (Miles Webb) 49 hours and 49 minutes.
