Sail-World.com : America's Cup winner Russell Coutts in first Round the Island Race
|
America's Cup winner Russell Coutts in first Round the Island Race |
New Zealander, Russell Coutts, the three time America's Cup winner, will make his first appearance in the Round the Island Race this weekend. Sailed over the waters that originated the sports most famous Yacht race - The America's Cup - back in 1851 and still competed for 158 years later, when not taking a time-out in the New York Courts.
Coutts will join 1,700 plus other entrants for the classic race. The course, established in 1931, which goes westward 50 miles round the Isle of Wight, starting and finishing in Cowes, the centre of British yachting.
Coutts will be aboard the Extreme 40 catamaran Team Aqua of Chris Bake. Coutts has won the America's Cup as a skipper three times and gained gold in the Finn class in the 1984 Olympic Games. His achievements include three World Match Racing Championships, numerous international match race wins and IOR, IMS and one-design victories.
In 2005 Coutts translated his long-standing passion for yacht design into a light-displacement 44-foot boat, the RC44, which is making its mark as a one-design class. He is joined on Team Aqua by fellow New Zealander Cameron Appleton, a regular helmsman/tactician on the Extreme 40 circuit.
• The new monohull race record was set by Mike Slade (ICAP Leopard) in 2008 at 3.53.05
• The multihull race record stands at Francis Joyon's 2001 time of 3hrs.08.29
by Flavia Bateson
4:45 PM Wed 17 Jun 2009 GMT
Click here for printer friendly version
Click here to send us feedback or comments about this story.
If you want to send this story to a friend, please use link below
http://www.sail-world.com/USA/Americas-Cup-winner-Russell-Coutts-in-first-Round-the-Island-Race/57984
Click for further information on
Round the Island Race
Related News Stories:
MORE STORIES ...
|
| |
