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Displaying items by tag: Challenge Business 45

#ClassicBoats - A Round the Island Race record holder left to rot at a Plymouth dock is set for a renewed lease of life on the open water, as the Plymouth Herald reports.

In her life as a racing yacht, the 72-foot Challenge Business 45 set a class record in the annual Isle of Man circumnavigation that still stands today, and was also victorious in the 2004/05 BT Global Challenge under the name BG Spirit.

But after sustaining damage to her mast and hull in a fall at a Plymouth boat yard three years ago, she was all but abandoned as repairs were thought to be too expensive.

That's where maritime businessman Brian Pogson comes into the picture, as he transported the yacht under her own steam to his Exeter boat yard for a survey - finding that the damage was localised to the impact zone and she was not beyond saving.

"I strongly felt that this stunning and well-built yacht was too good to scrap and that we could bring her back to life," said Pogson late last year.

The Plymouth Herald has more on the story HERE.

Published in Historic Boats

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago