USA's Rapture well placed in Sydney Hobart race

by Jim Gale & Sail-World.com on 27 Dec 2009
Among the eight maxis jostling on the 2009 Rolex Sydney Hobart start line yesterday was a US 100 foot luxury cruiser named Rapture.

Overnight she romped south and today she is much better placed than forecast, she is eighth place on lin e hours, between two serious stripped down 100 foot racers, Lahana, the former Zana, Konica Minolta, who was second on line hours in the 2003 Hobart race and ahead of Loyal, better known as Maxiumus the winner of the 2005 Transatlantic Race and winner of IRC Super divsion 0 in the Rolex Fastnet race of the same year.

On board Rapture is 40 year old owner Brook Lenfest. He has done the race before, on his then Swan 86. As was the case with the Swan, Rapture is competing in the Rolex Sydney Hobart as part of a series of races and cruises that will take her around the world.

Circumnavigating the globe first on a luxury Swan, and now an even more luxurious, 100 foot long fast cruiser. This guy is clearly doing something right.

Face to face, Philadephia media financier and philanthropist Brook Lenfest is a very pleasant, very relaxed and unassuming kind of bloke. He seems to be much happier talking sailing than business, though he concedes that Rapture is equipped with the best broadband satellite communications and he does spend more time on the computer than he would ideally like, even in the middle of the ocean.

But he does get to sea as much as he can. 'I try to do the ocean crossings, though I haven’t spent as much time on board as I would have liked,' he says.

'I did the delivery from Cape Town, (where Rapture was built) to Barbados. That was before the boat had spent much time on the water. Taking a brand new boat on a 7,000 mile maiden voyage, working out all the kinks out in the middle of the ocean was a little nerve wracking. I’ll probably do the Indian Ocean crossing to complete the circumnavigation. It resets reality. Things that seem super urgent probably slow down a bit after you have been at sea.'

Lenfest took over Rapture about half way through her construction, when her first owner decided he wanted an even bigger boat. 'She is an odd conglomeration,' he says, 'an American design built by an Italian company, with an Italian interior, built in South Africa. It’s what Swan used to be, which is a very high performance cruising boat using modern materials and design.'

She is heavy, around 68 tons in cruising mode, and still close to 60 tonnes when she is stripped out for racing. Lenfest says she really can’t even be classified as a cruiser/racer. Just a fast cruiser.

When it comes race time, though, Lenfest is determined it will be no cruise. He and Rapture’s skipper Jeff Hanlon have boosted the number of professional ocean racers in the crew for the Rolex Sydney Hobart.

'The previous races we have done with Rapture we have been a bit casual but for this one we want to give it a very good shot. We’re not going to be lounging about' he vows.

'The Rolex Sydney Hobart is very exciting. The potential dangers of the race, the variable conditions. We’re practicing every day. I don’t think we’ll have much chance of line honours against Wild Oats XI, Alfa Romeo and ICAP Leopard but if we don’t make mistakes and our choices about where to be on the race course prove to be good choices, so that we sail the best race we can, I’ll be satisfied. And if we are able to beat some of the race boats that have a higher rating than us it’s a win for us.'

Lenfest has learned the hard way, though, that the infamous Derwent River might ultimately be the arbiter of success or failure. 'We lost our class on corrected time by eight minutes after spending two hours on the Derwent trying to get over it. We thought about getting the crew overboard with harnesses to pull us across the line.' Welcome to the club.

The Bruce Farr designed Rapture has already competed in the Heineken Regatta in St Martin, the Super Yacht Cup in Sardinia and the Rolex Middle Sea race in Malta. After Hobart she will cross the Indian Ocean to Cape Town, then the Caribbean and on to Europe.

That is a lot of sea miles for a guy who only started sailing when his father bought a Bristol 38 when he was 15. 'We would go down on weekends to do some cruising. Mostly me on a floating dock waxing the hull because she was navy blue. I did an awful lot of waxing - that’s what I remember.

'My father still has the Bristol. Recently he lost the halyard up the top of the mast and my 77 year old mother winched me up in the bosun’s chair to get it. When I got to the top I realised not only was my mother winching me but the lines and the halyards were all 1981 vintage,' he jokes.

'My first delivery was taking the Bristol from Newport to Antigua. We were on a tight schedule so we ignored all the warnings not to leave harbour and we hit a storm with 70 knot winds that lasted for four days. We didn’t know what we were doing, we had way to much sail up and I don’t know how we didn’t lose the mast. If that didn’t scare the hell out of me not much else can I guess.'

Obviously Lenfest is a natural for the Rolex Sydney Hobart.