Emma gets a new steed

Exciting move forwards for the Pindar team

In one of the worst kept secrets in the yachting community, Pindar have today finally come clean with the news that they have acquired Graham Dalton's ill-fated Hexagon for their skipper Emma Richards to campaign over the forthcoming seasons.

Following the last Vendee Globe, Emma Richards and double handed sailing partner Miranda Merron were talking to designers Merf Owen and Rob Humphreys about a new Open 60. While their plans at the time changed and the boat was never built, the boat they conceived went on to be commissioned by Graham Dalton to campaign in Around Alone. edSponsor by the HSBC Education Trust, Hexagon was built by Southern Ocean Marine in New Zealand, but in Dalton's hands suffered a number of catastrophies, such as a dismasting prior to being sailed across the Atlantic on the qualifying voyage for Around Alone, then another dismasting after the boat had rounded Cape Horn during the race itself. This final blow put Dalton out of the race.

During Around Alone, Richards herself made a couple of significant tactical errors on the last two legs that put her out of the running, but her performance in the race generally was a constant battle due to her sailing a relatively old generation Open 60, and one without an all-important swing keel.

Now Pindar, the Scarborough-based print and multimedia company, who have sponsored Richards for the past four years, has bought her what is felt to one of the most state of the art Open 60s to enable Emma to compete at the front of the fleet in future events.

The new Pindar - Pindar 2? - will make her debut in the print company's colours in November's Transat Jacques Vabres. Emma also plans to compete in other crewed races next year such as the Quebec to St Malo race, as well as the RWYC singlehanded transatlantic race (formally OSTAR) in June 2004. This will be Richards’ next (and final) singlehanded yacht race and will give her the opportunity to follow up on her victory in the Open 50 class of the race in 2000. She has categorically stated she will not be taking part in the Vendee Globe next year.

The yacht is currently being shipped back to Europe, where it will undergo a major refit. This will include the fitting of a new mast currently in build at Southern Spars in Auckland, new sails, a new winch and pedestal system, among other improvements. The aim is to have the yacht back in the water in August for fine tuning and training leading up to the Transat Jacques Vabres. At present we are waiting for confirmation about who will sail with Richards on this two handed transatlantic race.

"I am absolutely thrilled that we have managed to acquire such a good boat," commented Richards. "We have a great race schedule planned for the next three years and we are also hoping that we could potentially use the boat for development and training purposes for a Volvo campaign. Either way, I am really excited as this is the first boat that we have actually owned, and it will enable us to build a team that will be very competitive over the next couple of years.”

Pindar are currently talking to other companies about potential partnerships in order to secure the necessary finances to run a leading campaign in the Volvo Ocean Race.

Andrew Pindar, Chairman of G.A. Pindar & Son commented: "Emma has been a great ambassador for us throughout the past four years. We have received considerable business benefit through our involvement in sailing. As a result we have acquired what we consider to be one of the best Open 60s on the water as we want to build on our success and give Emma the opportunity to compete at the very highest level. The ultimate aim is to put together a syndicate for the Volvo Ocean Race in 2005."