In the Golden Age of Offshore Racing
YDRA is alive and well in Germany. She won the 1973 One Ton Cup skippered by the great Italian Rear Admiral, Agostino Straulino, and crewed by her owner, Marina Bulgari Spaccarelli. YDRA also won the 1973 Giraglia. Bravo!
Huge congratulations to owners James Bates and Luísa Alpalhão for their beautiful restoration of OPTIMISTA! Their boat is the original steel OPTIMIST, winner of both the 1967 and the 1968 One Ton Cups!!
The 50th Anniversary of the Carter 37 is next year and Carter 37s in Europe are getting ready to celebrate! TOMIRA, owned by Francesco & Mietta Gandolfi, is looking gorgeous in Italy. MUSTANG, owned by Philippe-Jacques Roux and his son François-Xavier, has just undergone a refit and is looking “sensationelle”, as is LINUEN, owned by Thierry Ollat. Jean-Michel Hoarau, the owner of another French Carter 37, HYLAS, is having her beautifully restored in anticipation of launching her next Spring. Skippered by her original owner David Edwards, Commodore of the RORC, HYLAS won Class III in the 1973 Fastnet Race, a prestigious victory for the Commodore and HYLAS alike!
Grazie to Francesco and Mietta Gandolfi for the stunning new photos of their yacht RABBIT racing off Italy’s Ligurian coast. She was Dick’s first yacht design and the boat he skippered to victory in the 1965 Fastnet Race. The Gandolfis have invested much time and effort in her meticulous restoration, and it shows!
The international Admiral’s Cup regatta was for many years known as the unofficial world championships of ocean racing. Held every other year off the south coast of England, the Admiral’s Cup was contested by teams of 3 racing yachts from each participating country.
The Admiral’s Cup consisted of four races with points awarded to boats based on placement: the Cross channel race, Brittania Cup and New York Yacht Club Challenge Cup. The final race, and the only one to award triple points, is one of the world’s most prestigious: the Fastnet, a 650 mile, four day ocean race with a course beginning in Cowes, England, rounding Fastnet Rock off the south coast of Ireland and then finishing in Plymouth, England.
In 1969, eleven countries fielded Admiral’s Cup teams. Selected for the US team was RED ROOSTER (with lifting keel), designed and skippered by Dick Carter; CARINA, a McCurdy & Rhodes design skippered by Dick Nye; and PALAWAN III, a Sparkman & Stephens design skippered by IBM CEO Tom Watson.
The Australian team had won the Admiral’s Cup in 1967 and looked to be heading for a repeat victory in 1969. But RED ROOSTER won the Fastnet in a fleet of 140 yachts. This enabled the US to win the Admiral’s Cup, an achievement not repeated until 1997. It was Dick Carter’s second victory in the Fastnet, having won it in 1965 with his very first design, the revolutionary RABBIT. And RED ROOSTER was the high point boat of the 1969 regatta.
The French Tina sister ship BEL AMI was in Brittany’s port of Saint Malo a few days ago. Merci beaucoup to Jan who spotted her and took these gorgeous photos!
This past February 5th, the Russian Carter 30 Association celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Carter 30 yacht! There are more than 70 Carter 30s in the Moscow region. All except one were built by NAVIMOR in Szeczcin, Poland during the Soviet era. The Russian Carter 30 class has its own rules, regattas and a Russian Championship. Chapter 18 in Dick’s book traces the fascinating history of these yachts. Congratulations to all the Carter 30 owners worldwide!
Yes, Snoopy once helmed a prototype Carter 33 in the Åland islands, Baltic Sea. He was a very good boy!
Huge congratulations are in order for owners Bill Hubbard and his son William on the major restoration of their TINA sister ship, LIVELY LADY II. What a classic beauty!! Dick is very appreciative of the Hubbard family’s decades’ long commitment to her upkeep.
LIVELY LADY II (ex-ANTELOPE) was actually Dick’s very first design in the United States. The original 1966 TINA was based out of the Netherlands while her American owners were temporarily living there.
And LIVELY LADY II is as fast as she is gorgeous: Bill and William Hubbard won the 2006 Bermuda Race with her and brought home…..10 trophies. That’s some serious hardware for a yacht built in 1969.
