Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
A most fitting way to conclude this series of coverage of the 1971 Cape to Rio race and celebrate its 50th anniversary, is to wrap it all up with the elements presented today.
The image of the chart is the original chart as used by Albatros II, the overall handicap winner of the race. Some years ago it was presented to the Knysna Yacht Club, and still takes pride of place in the Club today. Thanks to Dudley Isaac for alerting me to this chart, and to the Knysna Yacht Club for sending me this image.
The second is the full report written on the race as published by Anthony Hocking in his book “Yachting in Southern Africa”. It is comprehensive, full of information from the race that has not appeared in any coverage I have given from the newspaper cuttings in my archives, and just wraps it all up very well. In my view it is a “must read”!
And then the final element is to honour all those people who were pioneers of a race, which 50 years later is still raced, and is still talked about worldwide. This of course is the list of trophy winners in 1971, plus all the names of boats, their owners, skippers, navigators and crew. This information has been extracted from the book “Rio ‘71″ written by Wilhelm Grutter and Gerhard Last. It’s worth studying in detail as many of those 1971 Rio Race pioneers are still around, with some still sailing regularly today.
At this point it is appropriate to mention all the administrators who made the race possible, and who successfully staged the longest ocean race in the world at the time, and the media which lapped up absolutely everything to do with the race by giving it saturation coverage. Thank you.
Finally, my Rio Race archives have glaring gaps in them, and end abruptly prior to the prize giving. So my plea is simply this: if anyone has any material on the race, or sailing in general, and would like to share it, please make contact (editor@sailing.co.za – or 083 265 3885). I will gladly scan the material and return it with a digitised copy of every single item scanned.
Please don’t destroy our rich sailing history or toss it in the garbage as we need to preserve as much of this as possible. This is my passion, so please assist and enable me to add to my archives which I share widely.
“Rio 1971 by Anthony Hocking – pgs 97-144″.
READ IT HERE: Rio 1971 by Anthony Hocking – pg 97-144
“Rio 1971 – trophies boat & crew info”.
READ IT HERE: Rio 1971 – trophies boat & crew info
pic courtesy of the Knysna Yacht Club
