RORC Caribbean 600
From Nautic News
Hap Fauth’s JV72, Bella Mente crossed the finish line in Antigua to take Monohull Line Honours for the 2014 RORC Caribbean 600 on Wednesday 26th February, in an elapsed time of 48 hours, 5 mins, 44 seconds. George David’s RP90, Rambler crossed the finish line in second place, just 10 minutes later and was followed by George Sakellaris’s RP72, Shockwave which finished third on the water and just over two minutes after Rambler.
Bella Mente, Rambler and Shockwave had an intense battle for 48 hours, with the lead changing on numerous occasions around the 600 mile course. After time correction, Shockwave leads the race overall with Bella Mente second and Rambler third. Shockwave must wait for more yachts to finish the race before an overall winner can be announced.
Hap Fauth was all smiles on the dock even though Shockwave had beaten Bella Mente after time correction. Bella Mente was first IRC Yacht to finish that is wholly manually powered (without either variable or moveable ballast) and will be awarded the Bella Mente Trophy as well as the Line Honours award.
“Oh yeah, we had lots of funky wind and, you know, all kinds of stuff: a lot of storms, a lot of thunder cells going through, crazy shifts,” commented Hap Fauth dockside. “We got caught under a couple of thunder cells and sat for 45 minutes, if you can believe that, until the breeze came back in. But the back of Guadeloupe – Bella Mente was 100% out of 100%. We studied it and the result was perfect. I will have to think about it, but I don’t think that we’ve had a closer offshore race than this. It was back and forth, back and forth – obviously you guys watched that on the tracker. But it’s a hell of a race! Those guys, (Shockwave and Rambler) they can get up and go and cover a lot of ground. The last beat coming in, we just basically sat in front of them and made sure they never got away from us. So, it was a classic match race, they tack, we tack – tack and pick up and go.”
Race Report by Louay Habib
Photo Credit : Tim Wright/photoaction.com
For more on this story go to:
http://www.nauticnews.com/en/2014/02/28/rorc-caribbean-600-fight-to-the-finish/