Artemis Ocean Racing wins the Open 60 Class in the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race
June 25, 2007 0 comments
Artemis Ocean Racing (AOR), the sailing team sponsored by leading UK investment company, crossed the finish line of the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race at 10.26 UK. It was a great victory for the Artemis crew, who arrived half an hour before Dee Caffari onboard Aviva, time, winning the Open 60 Class. The boat, lead by British skipper Jonny Malbon, was only the third monohull in the race to cross the finish line off Cowes after 5 hours, 26 minutes and 7 seconds despite conditions that were not suited to optimal performance.
Artemis Ocean Racing (AOR), the sailing team sponsored by leading UK investment company, crossed the finish line of the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race at 10.26 UK. It was a great victory for the Artemis crew, who arrived half an hour before Dee Caffari onboard Aviva, time, winning the Open 60 Class. The boat, lead by British skipper Jonny Malbon, was only the third monohull in the race to cross the finish line off Cowes after 5 hours, 26 minutes and 7 seconds despite conditions that were not suited to optimal performance.
Arriving on the dockside, Jonny Malbon commented, “Obviously I am really happy with our result. It is really good to be the first Open 60, but also to be the third monohull across the line, close behind Bounder which is a new and powerful boat. Congratulations to Leopard and it was a shame that she was so short of beating the race record.”
Malbon continued, “It was a very early morning for us. We got up at three and it was still dark when we sailed to the start line. 44 boats were on our start line and the weather was as expected, with light winds of five to ten knots from the West. Artemis got a very good start in the first row, with Leopard and Bounder ahead of us. We were right up there at the top of the fleet and had a short tack all the way down the Solent, which is always difficult on a canting keel boat like Artemis. We had to deal with a big swell which was largely formed by the tide. We sat on it as much as possible to get our boat speed up and just played around up and down the waves.”
“When we got to the Needles, we knew we would be a bit quicker so we put the big spinnaker up and chose a totally different tactic from most of the boats, who tried to stay inshore. We went offshore, which is much easier for us and that was when we made some massive gains. Before we knew it, we were probably in second or third place on the water (monohull). Leopard obviously took off but we had quite a good battle with Bounder from Saint Catherine’s point at the tip of the Isle of Wight all the way to the finish line. In the end, Bounder only finished a few minutes ahead of us.”
“We hit 20 knots a few times during the race and with downwind sailing we were doing 14 to 18 knots on average. These conditions were quite difficult for us as short tacking in the Solent is not our strongest point of sail. We had a very, very good crew onboard. It is a good bunch of guys and we have basically enjoyed it and had great fun. I have clocked up a significant amount of miles on the boat now and she is great. I love the Artemis boat and I am really confident with her. She is light, fully optimised and as a boat right now, she is pretty much together.”
For more information on Artemis Ocean Racing please visit www.artemisoceanracing.com
