Journey to the Islands 2009: Race cars in West Palm

When we ventured up to the harbormaster's office to check in a boat caught my attention over the fence in the marina next door. After concluding our business I walked around to investigate. Come to find out because this location has deep water access to the ocean and accepts ocean freight it is a preferred location for sailboats staging for the Southern Ocean Racing Conference. Several have arrived on their own bottoms as will others but a number will be shipped into this marina.

Rambler paces out at 60' something.

This blue boat (below) and the slightly smaller red boat "Titan" above sailed down from Rhode Island arriving a couple of days ago. Their draft and mast height forbids transitting the intracoastal and as a result they endured the weather we opted to avoid with respect to heavy air and also had to cope with the associated seas. The blue boat, as the story goes, was logging 22 knots in 30' seas under headsail alone just north of this area during the nastiest blows of this week.

But this is what caught my eye over the fence earlier. At first it appeared to be a Whitbred 60 but discovery proved otherwise. What is 99' in length less the bow sprint, requires 18' of water to float, races with a crew of 24 with no standing headroom below deck and can reach speeds of 35 knots in 20 knots of breeze (faster when the wind freshens). If you guessed "Speedboat" you are correct. The canting bulb keel is shown below complimenting twin daggerboards similar to a scow as well as twin rudders.

Claire stands a little over 5'.

Billionare Richard Branson either owns or leased the boat from the undisclosed owner (conflicting information) to attempt a speed record ocean crossing of the Atlantic from New York to England. Vinyl graghics in red were applied to the hull that have been stipped here at the yard. The campaign was dubbed Virgin Money and had an initial budget of 15 million that ballooned to 40 by the terminus of the second failed attempt. On the second attempt, the boat sailed into a 40' wave at speed that damaged the sails beyond repair 600 miles out.