Askew Brothers Hope to Conjure Transatlantic Race 2019 Victory with Wizard
A clear favorite for overall honors and possibly line honors in the upcoming Transatlantic Race 2019 is David and Peter Askew’s Wizard. The canting-keel VO70 will take the starting line next Tuesday with a widely experienced professional crew and a pedigree that is rooted in winning.
“The general rule of thumb is if you’re not fully canted, you’re not winning. Or, you’re not capable of winning,” says 52-year-old Peter Askew of Baltimore, Md. “The boat is very powerful and fast, very wet, but a heck of a lot of fun to sail.”
The 2019 edition of the Transatlantic Race begins next Tuesday, June 25, with 15 yachts set to cross the start line off Newport’s scenic Castle Hill Lighthouse. The race is organized jointly by the Royal Yacht Squadron, New York Yacht Club, Royal Ocean Racing Club and Storm Trysail Club, and is a direct descendant of the first great transatlantic ocean race in December 1866. The 2019 edition will be the 31st transatlantic race organized by the New York Yacht Club, and it remains one of the sport’s most enticing challenges.
Read more: Askew Brothers Hope to Conjure Transatlantic Race 2019 Victory with Wizard
Potts, Carina Line Up as Only Three-Time Entrant for Transatlantic Race 2019
NEWPORT, R.I. — The 2011 Transatlantic Race ended in gut-wrenching fashion for skipper Rives Potts and the adept crew of the fabled Carina. Leading by a comfortable margin for perhaps the first 17 days of the crossing, Carina sailed into a large windless area that allowed the smaller boats that had fallen off the back of the class to come roaring up from behind.
The incident meant that Carina lost out on Class 4 honors by less than an hour. After more than 18 days of racing, of being buffeted and becalmed, soaked and parched, fatigued from too little sleep in a soggy sleeping bag on a soggy bunk, a mere 54 minutes—0.2 percent of their race—is all that separated Carina from another transatlantic victory, and her crew from the memory of a lifetime.
Potts (Essex, Conn.), a Corinthian yachtsman to the bone, took the loss in stride. “We did very well in that race up until a day before the finish, but then we were becalmed for almost a day,” he says. “The boats behind us were smarter than us and went north and avoided the dead spot that we had sailed into. Our hats are off them, they did a great job.”
Read more: Potts, Carina Line Up as Only Three-Time Entrant for Transatlantic Race 2019
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