Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
And a very prosperous 2025 to you – may the year see all your wishes come true.
The 2025 Governor’s Cup will be drawing to a close in the next few days with the leading boats expected tomorrow (Tuesday). Conditions have been on the light side, yet the racing has been intense.
As a memory, way back in December 2006, this is how Trygve Roberts open his report on the race in the February 2007 issue of SAILING Magazine: “In that quiet time of the festive season, between Christmas and New Year, the Governor’s Cup 2006 got under way in a prompt and professionally run departure ceremony. With a good dollop of sponsorship from local companies and the island of St Helena, a really slick show was put on for participants, supporters and the general public. FBYC, RCYC and GBYC jointly organized this event and it was perhaps a little disappointing to only have 14 entries out of an original promised 26, but these are surely signs of the times affecting entries worldwide.”
This year’s race was not the usual warm, sunny downwind run, but rather a huge test of all boats and crews with the arrival of a powerful, unseasonal cold front on the afternoon of the start of the race, bringing with it huge seas and icy conditions.
The two racing boats up front, ‘Our Diane’ and ‘Swimlion’ were having their own problems. Billy Liesegang radioed in that they had torn a mainsail, but had been able to sew it together gain. Right from the start, ‘Our Diane’ looked like the boat to beat.
With just over 100 miles to go to the finish on Saturday 6 January, Liesegang lost his handicap lead to the Miura ‘Diddakoi’, which had sailed a quietly consistent race and reported no real problems. Robin Lapping’s L34 ‘Vortex’, having recorded the best 24 hour run of 177 miles, slipped in to take third place.
Line honours eventually went to ‘Our Diane’ with ‘Swimlion’ finishing four hours later. Handicap honours went to ‘Diddakoi’.
Also included in this report is the rescue of the trimaran which sunk during the race.
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE: Pages from 2007 02 – SAILING Magazine – OCR
