Heineken Cape to Rio 2011 Yacht Race - Winner declared

by Jeanne van Rooyen (Race HQ) on 11 Feb 2011 Heineken Cape to Rio yacht race winner was declared to be the City of Cape Town announced after race headquarters announced the official results in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday evening.

Gerry Hegie, skipper of the winning boat on handicap, said their victory was the culmination of some gritty determination building up to the race, which got underway from Cape Town’s Table Bay on January 15.

'The crew and I are stoked about winning the race,' said 25-year-old Hegie. 'The hard work has paid off despite all the negativity. We were not favoured before the race because we didn’t have a track history, but we put a lot of work into the boat, particularly where it would improve its performance.

'We ran the numbers around the IRC to optimise the yacht for this downwind race and also studied weather systems, downloaded weather files each day and worked through optimum courses. We took the boat apart and then reassembled it so we had peace of mind that we could push the boat to the very limit.'

And that’s precisely what City of Cape Town achieved. The boat completed the race in record-breaking time, securing Hegie and his six-man crew the prestigious South Atlantic Trophy, which will be handed over at a function at the Rio Yacht Club on Sunday night.

'What helped our cause was having Duncan Mathews and Michael Robb there from the beginning until two weeks before the race when the Brazilians came on board. Apart from not being able to take a shower this race was fantastic' said Hegie.

Hegie, who is sailing City of Cape Town back to South Africa on Tuesday, said it would be rewarding to see sailing receiving the same sort of profile that cricket gets in South Africa.

'Sailing went off the radar after apartheid ended,' he said, 'and sponsorships also fizzled out because yachting was seen as a white elitist sport. But that now is no longer the case.'

Line honours winner Christ Frost, who smashed the record for the quickest crossing from Cape Town to Rio, arriving in just under 16 days, said the race had been a positive experience.

'Clearly it is an iconic race, the premier event on the SA circuit and a must do for any serious offshore yachtsman. It was great fun, said the 47-year-old skipper from Umhlanga near Durban. Line honours was the goal that we set out to do and we achieved it.'

It was a positive start to a hectic programme for the ambitious Frost, who has entered Prodigy in a number of international events for the rest of the year.

'We will be going to Antigua Week in April, followed by the Caribbean Transatlantic race from New York to Lizard Point in Cowes in June, then the Fastnet in August and we will be ending the campaign in Malta in October with the Rolex Middle Sea race around Sardinia, Tripoli and Malta.'

The core of the crew will remain on Prodigy for these events and South Africans will be flown in depending on the race; a case of horses for courses.

Another notable performance in this year’s race was unquestionably the Robinson family and their 35ft Simonis Ciao Bella, which finished second on handicap. Ciao Bella’s crossing was a remarkable all-family affair which captured a following both in South Africa and abroad. At one stage skipper Mike Robinson and wife Gill, sons Ricky, 23, Brennan, 22, Ryan, 14, daughters Kathryn, 25, Michaela, 10 and nephew Bradley, 19 were only three nautical miles behind City of Cape Town on handicap until they ran into a hole.

The race will also be remembered for the sportsmanship of Dale Kushner and the crew of Xtra-Link, which diverted in mid-Atlantic to supply Izivunguvungu with fresh water. Xtra-Link finished third on handicap.

Final word has to come from veteran Australian yachtsman Jon Sanders, 71, who has now completed eight circumnavigations. Said the skipper of Perie Banou II, which at one stage was lying third on handicap: 'If we had avoided all the technology that is now available for wind direction like we had done before we could have been in the top three on handicap, but we would never have beaten the winners City of Cape Town. Their skipper, Gerry Hegie, was very professional about the way he tackled this race.'

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