Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
Such was the response from yesterdays mention of the Double Cape Race, plus a comment that the race, in which ‘Black Pepper’ took all the honours, was the best, has prompted me to reproduce the features from the SA Yachting Magazine.
Rob Meek reported on the race as follows:
“At Cape Point Spilhaus was thirty five minutes ahead of ‘Black Pepper’ thereby giving her the handicap lead by some ten minutes. On the run down from Cape Point the Simonstown starters could be seen beating back up to the point being led by Geoff Meek on ‘Charger’. At the point of crossing it appeared that ‘Charger’ would be leading on handicap by half an hour, however, she was on a dead beat and the Table Bay starters were eating up the miles on a fast spinnaker run and heading for home.
“‘Voortrekker’ managed to get through to the finish line without losing the wind in a record breaking 18 hours 17 minutes. The gate was then slammed in the face of ‘Three Spears’ and she spent an hour or two going round in circles off the sewer outfall off Sea Point. ‘Spilhaus’, ‘Dirk’ and ‘Freedom’ then also got trapped in the frustrating excrementious calm and watched with horror as ‘Black Pepper’ and Dr Warr sailing ‘Warrfare’ came breezing down the coast and sailed right past some of the becalmed boats. This turn of events put ‘Black Pepper’ first on handicap and ‘Brightwater Fox’ second overall. The Chargers finishing at their home port of Simonstown had to beat dead to windward before rounding Cape Point and this let the Cape Town boats slip through the leading positions. Of the smaller boats the L26 ‘Hors D’Oeuvre’ skippered by the debonair Andy Rudolf was first in her class with visiting Durban helmsman Graham Dibb on board. In the Miura class ‘Moonshine’ was first over the line skippered by Tony Abbott.”
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE: 1983 11 00 – SA Yachting – OCR
