Thornburg's FOMO setting off to Cuba in St Petersburg Yacht Club Race
by Rachel Fallon-Langdon on 28 Feb 2017
Lloyd Thornburg's FOMO - St Petersburg Yacht Club Race Richard Langdon / Team Fomo
Lloyd Thornburg’s “FOMO” (Shaun Carkeek 40 mkII) will today set off from St Petersburg Yacht Club to Cuba. Onboard with him he has, Nick Rogers, Simon Fisher, Jan Dekker, Mark Andrews, Henry Bomby, Pete Cumming ,Rob Greenhalgh and Ben Quatromoni. The race has fantastic history dating back to 1929 and has been revived this year for the first time since 1959.
History of the Race
In 1929 St. Petersburg, Florida, then a small tourist city on Tampa Bay, was suffering from the effects of the Great Depression and Prohibition. In Havana, Cuba, a great 400 year old port city, the rum was flowing and the night life was unsurpassed. George S. Gandy, Jr. ('Gidge Gandy), a well known yachtsman and son of the builder of the first bridge across Tampa Bay, had sailed his sturdy 36' ketch Cynosure to Havana. He saw an opportunity. He approached Commodore Rafael Posso of the elegant Havana Yacht Club and a partnership to conduct a St. Petersburg-Habana yacht race was born. The SPYC race documents used the Spanish spelling for Havana, likely in recognition of the Havana club's essential role in this event. (In Spanish, the 'b' is spoken as a 'v.') In recognition of the Cuban government's cooperation in restoring this event, that courtesy will continue.
The first race started off The Pier in St. Petersburg March 30, 1930 and finished in the lee of Morro Castle at the Habana harbor entrance. It drew an eleven boat fleet and was won by the elegant schooner Haligonian owned by Houston Wall of Tampa. By 1935 the fleet had doubled in size and this event was attracting the best ocean racing yachts from the US Eastern and Gulf coasts, the Great lakes and Cuba. The race was sailed over the same 284 nautical mile course from 1930 through 1959 with the exception of three years of World War II, when racing was cancelled, and 1958 when political conditions in Cuba required a diversion of the fleet to Miami. Despite the uncertainties, the 1959 race attracted a record 37 entries, but it was to be the last - until the upcoming revival of this challenging race in 2017.
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