2011 was a fantastic year for Ultimate Sails with our customers cruising far and wide as well as racing to win many of the most prestigious regattas. Below is a roundup of some of the major successes from last season. As we begin a new season we’d like to thank all the customers who chose Ultimate Sails, we appreciate your business and look forward to working with you again. Do let us know if there is anything we can do to help you prepare for the new season.
In May Tony Buckingham’s Soto 40
Ngoni raced in the first round of the Prestigious Audi Med Cup in Cascais Portugal. It was a baptism of fire sailing in wind conditions up to 30 kts and the
Ngoni team managed a superb race win in their first ever regatta in the Soto 40 which bode well for the rest of the season. Read more on their first outing
here.
June was a busy month with Andy Greenwoods team winning the J92 Nationals in their newly acquired
Wizard of Cos. Ultimate Sails delivered a brand new suit of sails a few days before the regatta.
Phil Taylor and Kevin Sproul won the J80 Nationals in
J.A.T. – their fourth Nationals win in the J80 and a great performance from the latest designs of Ultimate Sails.
Doctors Phil Thomas and Duncan McDonald launched their brand new J111
Shmokin Joe the day before the Round the Island Race. Within 24 hours
Shmokin Joe had a maiden race win in IRC class 1 and 6th overall, despite racing against many much bigger boats her elapsed time of just under 6 hours put her in the top ten of fastest monohulls in the race. Not surprising when they were often hitting downwind speeds of 20 kts + in the huge waves around the back of the Island!
July saw Glynn Williams and his crew on
WISC winning the Swan 45 Europeans in Cowes. Glynn is one of our most loyal and successful customers and this was his second Swan 45 Europeans win to add to multiple Cowes weeks and the Rolex cup.
Alistair Evans won IRC class C at the Swan Europeans. Alistair’s beautiful Swan 37 is the 15th
Alvine to be raced by his family.
Dr Colin Wall launched his latest
True Love, a new J/111 and proceeded to win his class in The J Cup. Dr Wall is one of Ultimate’s and J Boats most loyal customers. He’s also one of the most successful J boat owners in the UK as 2011 was his 4th win in Class at the J Cup, each one achieved in different versions of the J Boat range!
August saw the flying Doctors in their J/111
Shmokin Joe taking on and winning a very tough IRC class 2 at Cowes Week. Cowes Week was
Shmokin Joe’s first opportunity to race against other J/111’s but they showed them all a clean pair of heels and the closest competition came from another J Boat, the J/122
Jinga. It went down to the wire in the last race where Shmokin Joe held their nerve to win the week.
David Aisher’s J/109
Yeoman of Wight won the RORC Channel race overall. Yeoman of Wight was Skippered by Henry Smith and his crew form the British Keelboat Academy and the average age onboard was just 21 years old. The crew were delighted with their victory especially as this was part of their warm up to the Rolex Fastnet Race later in the month, in which they were the first J/109 to complete the course.
Tony Buckinghams Soto 40
Ngoni capped a great season winning the Audi Med Cup in Cartagena, Spain. This was the first and to date only win for a British owned boat at the Med Cup and a fantastic reward for hard work the team had put in throughout the season.
In November,
J.A.T won the J/80 Autumn Championships winning 50% of the races and never finishing worse than 2nd. This result led to the award of the Garmin Sports boat of the year trophy for
J.A.T and bodes well for the World Championship in Dartmouth 2012.
Finally in December to finish off a brilliant year on the water J/109
Jumping Jellyfish won the final race of the Garmin Hamble Winter Series. They only competed in 2 races of the series and came off the race course having both, using the 2011 designs from Ultimate Sails.
Happy Sailing in 2012
Ultimate Sails Team