"The Race"
by John Colver

The Aotea Team Trophy to be competed for in the forthcoming Midwinters was donated by Staff Commodore Peter Hogg and named after his record breaking catamaran in which he set several solo trans-Pacific records. She pitch-poled on the Double-Handed Farallon Islands Race a few years ago (Peter and Kame Richards were rescued by helicopter and the boat half circumnavigated the Pacific Ocean for nine months, upside down and alone, before fetching up on a reef off the Philippines).

In 1995, Peter Hogg was aboard Steve Fossett’s maxi-cat Lakota for the record breaking run from Yokohama to San Francisco and Corinthian hosted the successful skipper and crew.

Members may also remember that Peter organized the Gold Race in 1998, a crewed non stop “sprint” from New York to San Francisco by three Open 60’s which were then docked at CYC for a few weeks. We had to dredge keel holes for their 14ft. draft. The race was won by Ives Parlier with Aquitane Innovations who at this very moment is taking part in the single-handed Vendee Globe round the world race, with the same boat, jury rigged after losing his mast in the Southern Ocean. If you are interested, you can follow this on: www.vendeeglobe.com. Another very good website is: yachtsandyachting.com and just click on to “events” for a search. PRB which finished second in the Gold Race skippered by Isabelle Autissier and which many of us went aboard (and many of us became good friends with Isabelle), is leading the Vendee Globe sailed by Desjoyeaux.

Later in 1998, Peter arranged for Corinthian to host Bruno Peyron’s 84ft. maxi-cat, Explorer at the end of her various record breaking passages around the Pacific (including breaking Lakota’s Yokohama to San Francisco record by a full two days). The day she was to arrive in San Francisco, a fleet of Corinthian boats went out to greet her but no sign. It turned out she had lost her wind off Point Reyes but her radios had packed up and Rosalind and I spent several hours in our Grady White with Explorer’s French project director, tearing around the ocean from the channel buoys to Duxbury, looking for the boat. We were finally able to communicate by the boat sending a satellite fax to their Paris office, who then called us on our cellular ‘phone on the Grady White. Corinthian looked after the boat for several weeks on one of our moorings and many members got to meet (and a few lucky ones to sail with) co-skipper Skip Novak and also Cam Lewis, who then chartered the boat from Bruno Peyron for a series of promotional sails on the Bay.

Well, all this is a lead up to “The Race” - a non-stop crewed around the world race for unlimited sail boats, which started off Barcelona in Spain on New Year’s Eve. Six boats are taking part - all so-called “maxi-cats” - in the 100ft plus range; Skip Novak is co-skippering a modified Explorer (renamed Innovation Explorer); Cam Lewis is skippering Team Adventure; and Peter Hogg was all set to crew on Steve Fossett’s Playstation. For tune ups in 1999, Playstation with Peter on board, did speed trials off New Zealand and then three Atlantic crossings, but in early December Peter found out in the required pre-race medical, that he had a potential problem which, if it developed at sea, could place the whole Playstation project at risk (to say nothing of himself!).

He reluctantly had to withdraw, but he and Shama flew to England at the beginning of December where they joined the boat for the delivery to Barcelona. Peter took over as Project Manager and not long after the fleet left Barcelona on December 31, they were making arrangements to fly home when they got a call to say the main had suffered structural damage and Playstation had to put into Gibraltar for a replacement. Plans were canceled, Peter had the spare sails loaded on to a rented truck and he and Shama raced all through the night (to the extent you can race a rented truck across Spain) to meet up with the boat . Under the rules of The Race, if you put in anywhere and go ashore or receive outside assistance, you can’t leave for 48 hours. That is quite a bit of catching up to do with these boats, but Playstation has already regained 24 hours and the race is on.

Through Peter Hogg and the events summarized above, Corinthian has a number of associations with these round the world boats and their skippers. If you want to follow the progress, go to: TheRace.org; or to fossettchallenge.com; or catch up with Peter around the Club. And don’t forget to put your “Aotea” team together for the Midwinters.

[next page]