Always something in a name
by John Curnow, Editor, Sail-World AUS on 2 Oct 2017
Peter Morton’s Carkeek Mk3 Girls on Film - Day 2 - RORC IRC National Championship 2017 Shaun Roster
Many may have wondered just how the whole Fast40+ was going to pan out. On announcement, there was a flurry of models, and then just like British sports cars of old, the little badges with MkII and even Ml III started to appear. That might not be too far off the mark either, for the original action was all centred around the Solent. Now it was not brilliant for resale of the earlier ones, never is. Out of it all, the class took off, proving that you could do 20s in a 40-something, and still have a hoot, without the need for the dollars and extra bods to go play in the village of the TeePees.
Awesome. The plan worked. So when a founder, and the current President of the TP52 class orders himself a new Carkeek 40 (a MkIII), you can see that this Grand Prix class is alive and kicking. That he is also a much-respected owner/driver, then Corinthian gets bandied around smartly. So it is Niklas and Catherine Zennström, the owners of Rán Racing, that have made the leap in, immediately after the recent HYS One Ton Cup in Cowes. The footage and images of the class and also the event were pretty good, and it augurs well for the class’ expansion into other markets, as well.
A crew of 11, with a cap on pros at five, a limit on the number of rags, and probably even more importantly, mods, and you can see that a non-arms race with competitive sailing could work here and also in the US. There is a little bit of back ground footage here, here and also here. At least one boat here in AUS is going to show us what it all might be like with a fleet of them charging around, when it returns to racing shortly.
Rock dwellers might not have seen that the new AC Protocol came out for the 2021 bash that will be AC36. There were not any majors included, given the issue with the caulking leading into it, save for what was probably deemed an even more stringent country of origin clause for the sailors than was anticipated. It is not as strong for the technology side, which is interesting, but showing that Sardinia is the fallback position, probably at least reveals the obvious about where the money trail ends…
Hopefully it does occur across the ditch, and we field a team. If Artemis also does not continue, then we will have enough for two teams, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. One fully funded and able to go about its business is a good start. We’ll take it!
Now if you would like to receive the Sail-World newsletter each week, then please go to the 'Newsletter' button at the top of the Sail-World home page and enter your details. Simples...
If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.sail-world.com/157697
