January |
Winner: | JEAN LE CAM (FRA) |
| In the 1997 Whitbread it was
Paul Cayard and his brutal
talk of firehoses on deck
that kept followers of the
race locked onto the news
coming off the eventual race winner. In this
Vendée Globe that mantle has landed
with King Jean, who introduced himself
to thousands of new fans by hogging the
limelight in the opening weeks of the race
by refusing to lie down with the other old
boats as he ‘should’. And then there came
prose to turn Moitessier green with envy…
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February |
Winner: | NATASHA LAMBERT (GBR) |
| Currently mid-Atlantic with
four other crew in her quest
to become the first sailor to
cross the pond using only
breath and tongue to control
her big 46ft cat. The 23-year-old suffers
with athetoid cerebral palsy and has no use
of her arms and legs. Lambert has already
crossed the English Channel as well as a
dauntingly impressive singlehanded lap of
the Isle of Wight. In her free time… she is
busy fundraising for her own sailing school
as well as the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust
|
March |
Winner: | DAN BERNASCONI (NZL) |
| Somewhere along the line
someone important will have
said to Team New Zealand’s
head of design ‘Is this thing
actually going to work?’ on
seeing a first impression of the AC75. While
Guillaume Verdier and Benjamin Muyl had
the original idea, based on a smaller boat
they were working on, it was Bernasconi
the Cup Defender turned to when it came
to the heavy lifting. And all the time in the
background were the murmurs of doubt
coming from the Challenger of Record…
|
April |
Winner: | KOJIRO SHIRAISHI (JPN) |
| Shiraishi started the Vendée
Globe on a new design but
with the stated intention to
finish the race first and then
see where he was in the final
results. Such humility and openness are
rare in big events that require very large
sponsorship to take part in. The very open
approach is partly to respect his mentor,
the late BOC class winner and Tokyo taxi
driver Yukoh Tada. Dr Mori, the founder of
his sponsor DMG, also respected someone
who told it straight. And Kojiro did finish
|
May |
Winner: | RUFUS HENRY (NZL) |
| After a quick brainstorm we
realised there is one ‘right’
nomination to represent the
whole of Emirates Team New
Zealand. Rufus is the younger
brother of Te Rehutai grinder Finn Henry
and is the team’s ‘Everywhere Man’, a job
Rufus has carried out superbly (also scaring
his chaseboat co-driver whenever he can).
The America’s Cup prizegiving was the
chance at last for the world to see that
there is a lot more to this team than 11
extraordinary sailors (plus Grant Dalton!)
|
June |
Winner: | BRANDON LINTON (USA) |
| Nominated to represent the
whole amazing shore crew at
American Magic for putting a
completely broken example
of the most complicated type
of sailboat known to man back together in
11 days. They did it and had it been earlier
in the competition when their rivals were
less well-settled it may even have been
enough to stay in the game. No matter, to
get a smashed AC75 back out there and
around the course at all in those two final
very windy races was an epic achievement
|
July |
Winner: | ANDY MALONEY (NZL) |
| Crikey, could the Team GBR
hegemony of the Finn class
finally be at an end… just
before the Tokyo Games?
When six-time Gold Cup
winner Ben Ainslie retired his position was
immediately filled by Giles Scott (four Gold
Cups). But after a long break for the 2021
America’s Cup Scott finished only ninth at
the 2021 event –where Andy Maloney
took the prize ahead of Joan Cardona (ESP)
and Kiwi defending champion Josh Junior.
If Tokyo happens, this will get interesting
|
August |
Winner: | PETE CUNNINGHAM (CAY) |
| Any man who gets around the Fastnet course in 24 hours gets our respect but when that person was born in 1941 (we’re too polite ever to mention Peter’s age) then we think that makes it more than the usual bit special. Peter Cunningham is best known as a big multihull sailor with his MOD70 Powerplay, which won the last RORC Caribbean 600. Last year also saw him in action in the Cayman Islands racing his J/70 and J/22. Also racing with Andy Beadsworth in Dragons where his team was third in the HM King Juan Carlos Trophy in Cascais.
|
September |
Winner: | ERIC DOYLE (USA) |
| Sailing with Tom Olsen, Doyle
won the Star Worlds back in
1999 and he has clearly not
lost the knack, winning this
year’s midwinters in Miami
with a scoreline of 2,1,1,1,1,1,1,8 racing
now with Payson Infelise. To put some
context to this achievement, the next
places were filled by Augie Diaz, Paul
Cayard and John McCausland, all of them
also previous Star World Champions.
Doyle’s final tally of 8pt put him 17pt
ahead of 2nd-place Miami specialist Diaz
|
October |
Winner: | MARTINE GRAEL/KAHENA KUNZE (BRA) |
| Following her previous
success at Rio 2016 Martine
chilled out for a while by
competing in the Volvo
Ocean Race on AkzoNobel –which she was
aboard when the Dutch entry broke the
24-hour record set by her father Torben 10
years before. Now there is talk in Brazil of
Martine hooking up with Dad and her now
double gold medal 49er FX crew in the
2022 Ocean Race. There are plenty more fast
Graels to make up the numbers if needed
|
November |
Winner: | DIEGO NEGRI (ITA) |
| Not in any way to demean
the latest great performance
from Negri’s 2021 Star World
Champion crew Frihjof Kleen,
but the superb German front
man has won this title (and many others)
before, while for Italy’s perennial runner-up
crossing the line in that final race brought
an Oscar-level outpouring of emotion, that
started… ‘I must thank the Folli family for
building my beautiful girl, called 21! I love
her!! She is a winner like 21 in blackjack!
Now she is my baby for ever… I promise!!!’
|
December |
Winner: | MELWIN FINK (GER) |
| You’re going to be hearing a
lot about this young chappie.
We suspect that his bravura
Leg 1 victory in the Mini
Transat, pressing on against
the advice of race organisers who were
predicting winds of 60-80kt, is just the
start. Fink is 19, but, rather than sounding
impetuous when he later discussed his
choice to carry on, it was clear he had
studied the meteo in great detail then
made his correct decision about how to
avoid the storm while protecting his lead
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