2004 Review - part two

The second installment of this years sailing action

In part one the review of the year we left two boats nearing the end of the circumnavigations. Steve Fossett on Cheyenne had the finish line in sight, but would the big cat get the saucer of cream? The answer was an emphatic Yes.

Cheyenne crossed the line on 5 April, giving her a new record of 58 days and nine hours and taking almost six days off Orange’s time . TheDailySail hot footed it down to Plymouth to get the story which was told in part 1 and part 2. Later in the month came the news that Fossett was hanging up his seaboats and we reviewed his achievements in sailing.

Meanwhile Geronimo was struggling to keep up with the pace and like her previous attempt this one unravelled in the South Atlantic on the way home. De Kersauson and crew finished on 29 April 18 hours ahead of Orange’s time, but nowhere near Fossett's new benchmark. This led to some controversy as Fossett had not paid the entry fee for the Jules Verne Trophy, so de Kersauson became the new JVT record holder while Fossett became the holder of the non-stop round the world in the eyes of the official arbitrators, the World Sailing Speed Record Council.

One thing the Spring brings us is great Olympic classes sailing and with the Olympics in August we were in for a bumper crop of great regattas. It was also a bumper time on TheDailySail: 14th April - 22 news items, 1 photo gallery and a nice juicy feature just for good measure.

In his first column for TheDailySail, Ian Walker tackled the various selection processes that countries employ to pick the chosen one. We also spoke US Finn sailor Kevin Hall and finally got to use ‘Never mind the bollocks’ as a headline.

If anyone doubted just how on form Ben Ainslie (below) was then the opening few days of the Princess Sofia regatta in Palma was to dismiss them. Six races in Ainslie tallied six race wins. He did not have to sail the final race. Rick Tomlinson was there catching it on camera.



Early and mid April also saw the Star Europeans ( Loof wins), the Laser Radial Worlds ( Blackburn wins) and the 49er Worlds ( Martinez and Fernandez win) take place.

A couple of interesting boats were launched during this month too. Paul Larsen, with a smile as wide as his main beam, launched the radical speedster SailRocket in Southampton. We talked to him about the prospect of 50 knots boatspeed in 20 knots windspeed. Promising young offshore sailor Nick Bubb was also up to things, putting the first wingmast on a Mini. And there was news of a new product from Hobie that should be in every sailor’s garage.

If it was photos you were after, then there were plenty. One and two galleries from the Spring Series on the Solent and the Red Funnel Easter Challenge. Carlo Borlenghi was also in the air at the Antigua Classic Week.

The world of the America's Cup was coming out of winter hibernation, with all the players heading for Valencia for a big pow-wow. Local resident Sabina Mollart-Rogerson gave a low down on all the cool places to hang out. We had some news about GBR Challenge’s summer plans. We got the news from the Alinghi Camp via Jochen Schuemann and Stefan Kandler brought us up to speed with K Challenge. Meanwhile Team New Zealand were denying all knowledge of a sponsor tie up with a Middle Eastern airline.

The Star Worlds coverage carried the headlines – ‘Star studded’, ‘Star shambles’ and finally ‘Loof wins’. The other Olympic classes had moved on to Heyres, with Team GBR coming away with an impressive five medal haul.



May opened with a bang; with the 60ft tris blasting around off La Trinite, and photographer Gilles Martin-Raget set his shutter speed to stun. While in that part of the world, we also had a look at the Open 7.50 and the huge festival of hulls that is the Carnac Eurocat.

At Hayling Island the RS 10th Anniversary celebrations we under way and we witnessed the mass start of the big race of the weekend.

Putting on our suits we had Stephanie Calvin and Jonathan Oddy of UK law firm Burges Salmon look at the potential liability of skippers and owners. US Sailing decided to pull out of the proposed new Grand Prix Rule and Andy Rice looked in detail at some issues facing Antigua Race Week.

We had a good poke around a couple of new boats on the scene: the Dubois designed Genuine Risk was the next addition to the circa-100-foot-maxi gang while Jean Le Cam’s new bright yellow Lombard Open 60 Bonduelle was also causing a stir.

Two big world championships got underway in May. The Laser worlds in Turkey were won for a seventh time by Brazilian Robert Schiedt. At the 470 worlds in Zadar, Croatia, the mens' title went to the Australians Nathan Wilmot and Malcom Page. The womens' title was won by Swedish sailors Therese Torgersson and Vendela Zachrisson. Disaster befell the hot favourites from Greece when Sofia Bekatorou had to be Medivac’ed out.

In a rather refreshing way the French yacht Solune, owned by Jean-Philippe Chomette, broke the Round Britain record. Without any fanfare their new time of 7 days and 4 hours took more than three days off the previous monohull record.

News that Anna Kournikova (below, left) was to start The Transat race finally gave us the excuse to publish some photos of her and scoot up the search engine rankings. We also got see what see looks like with oilies on when Ellen took her for a day out on the water.



A couple of other interesting events stood out in May. The team racing epic, which is The smart Wilson Trophy, was won by the team from Spinnaker. While the J22 Worlds went to the American Alec Cutler.

We got the low down on Tracy Edwards’ Oryx Cup and spoke to Denis Horeau about the rescued Vendee Globe, he'd recently been put in charge of. Iain Percy signed with the Italian America’s Cup syndicate +39 and Peter Bentley had a look at some pretty fancy looking fibre optics for us.

Siren Sundby had a good start to the SPA Regatta, banging in three bullets on the first day. The Irish announced their Olympic Squad in June and we spoke to rising starlet 420 sailor Hannah Mills.

Now for the big one. The Transat. A bigger gleaming gathering of ocean racing hardware you never did see. Steeped in history we published one and two historical photo galleries from Bluegreen Pictures as a great preview to the race. We spoke to Open 60 race favourite Mike Golding and the dashing heroine Karine Fauconnier.

In Plymouth the gun fired on 31 May and we published some fantastic video footage of Yves Parlier's radical new catamaran with the hammer down. The race was full of drama with PRB dismasting and Bernard Stamm losing his keel. The multihull victory went to Michel Desjoyeau in Geant and we had the photos and in Boston James Boyd spoke to ‘THE Man’. Golding won the monohull division and we also spoke to Parlier about his terrifying ride across the Atlantic on very very wet new catamaran.



The top two most read articles in June were the detailed look at the Swiss lake racing catamarans the Decision 35s and the first photos of Stephen Fein’s radical new monohull Full Pelt under sail.

It also became quite clear at this stage of the year that the Transpac 52 was creating more than a stir in the world of big boat yachting. We went to Newport, Rhode Island to see for ourselves what was going on and talked to Richard Breeden, owner of Bright Star.

Back in the America's Cup arena, the UBS Trophy went down a storm in Newport. First blood went to Ainghi, but it was BMW Oracle who were to end up walking out winners. The event was overshadowed by the Alinghi ‘shenanigans’. Was Coutts sacked and how did Butterworth break his ankle? A calm Gavin Brady brought us up to date with things going on the BMW Oracle camp. Meanwhile, surprise surprise, Emirates Team New Zealand came out sporting a new logo.

The annual Round the Island Race was a cracker. We published two photo galleries of the action. There were also some photos from the start of the Newport Bermuda race.

To bring June to a conclusion Ellen was battling her way across the Atlantic in B&Q in an attempt to break Laurent Bourgnon’s 1994 outright singlehanded record. The pressure was on as the record attempt looked like being a photo finish. It was not to be and Ellen was just 18 miles short when the hour glass ran empty.

In the third instalment of this year we’ll review the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, among other things. Happy Christmas!