Team FGI set to create history for Skipper Designer Jon Sayer

by Ian Grant on 10 Apr 2003 The 10.1m Sumo 101 Ocean racing sport yacht Team FGI was racing towards a place in World shorthanded sailing history today when she entered the 25 day of racing in the physically tormenting 5000 n/ml Melbourne to Osaka race.

Team FGI crewed by the talented Jon Sayer and Joel Berg work mates from the Brisbane All Yacht Spars mast, rigging and boatbuilding complex was logging good speed as she faced another 1300 n/mls to sail.

Despite sailing in her first official race Team FGI was proving her design to be the most exciting yacht of her size to be launched in Australia for some years.

At this mornings fleet position report Team FGI the smallest yacht in the fleet held third place overall and led her class by a mammoth 171 miles.

During the past 25 days the combination of dual Melbourne to Osaka race winner Jon Sayer and his 23 year old crew mate Joel Berg have proved the Sumo 101 design to be a very impressive performer in one of the toughest tests on the World Ocean racing circuit.

Berg noted for his safe and aggressive helming skills heads the peak speed graph with 19.1knots while Sayer who co crewed his designed and built sloops Flying Fish and Sayernara to previous Melbourne to Osaka victories has logged 18.4 knots as his best speed.

Sayer would certainly like to grab the speed benchmark from Berg but he has good reason to be impressed with the performance of Team FGI which has logged a daily average distance of 146 n/mls despite sailing into 50 knot head wind gales off the New South Wales coast and drifting in the grip of the Equatorial Doldrums.

The conventional keel ballasted sloop has produced an impressive performance to hold third place behind the larger water ballasted sloops Maverick 11 and Kontrol.

Maverick 11 entered the final 1000 n/mls of the marathon course today leading Kontrol by 224n/mls with Team FGI another 157 n/mls astern with all three yachts assured of filling the top three places.