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Displaying items by tag: Conor fogety

The Royal Western Yacht Club of England has announced the rescheduling of its OSTAR TWOSTAR that was postponed in 2020 due to the COVID 19 virus, to a new date of May 9th 2021.

The 2021 race will continue to run between Plymouth England and Newport Rhode Island as before.

Ireland has previous success in the OSTAR Race through the pioneering efforts of Cork Harbour solo sailor Barry Hurley who took a class win in 2009 and more recently with Howth Yacht Club's Conor Fogerty who raced to success in 2017.

A new 2021 Notice of Race, Entry form and World Sailing 2020 - 2021 Offshore Safety Regulations for Cat 1 yachts can all be downloaded from the event website.

Published in Solo Sailing

Conor Fogerty has had a great first 48 hours in his 21–day transatlantic Ostar race. His Jeanneau Sunfast 3600 BAM made a significant play yesterday by heading North to the Irish coast and this has paid off in the short term.

The Open 50 'Vento' was late making this decision and had to turn some sharp corners and consequently lost approx 10 miles to BAM.

The other 3600 'Mister Lucky seems to have adopted a more southerly route and this represents the first large tactical long term split. So, what of the long term? The low out in the Atlantic has moved further North - too far to go over the top of it so this means that there could be significant upwind work which will make it a very tough race. Later today should see winds increase to 20-25 knots, pushing BAM back on to white sails.

Published in Solo Sailing
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About Quarter Tonners

The Quarter Ton Class is a sailing class of the International Offshore Rule racing the Quarter Ton Cup between 1967 and 1996 and from 2005 until today.

The class is sailed by smaller keelboats of similar size and is likely the world's most-produced keelboat class.

The Ton, Half, Quarter, etc. 'classes' were each given a 'length' and yacht designers had almost free rein to work the hull shapes and measurements to achieve the best speed for that nominal length.

The Ton Rules produced cranky and tender boats without actual downwind speed. Measurement points created weird, almost square hull shapes with longish overhangs.

They were challenging to sail optimally and lost value very quickly as any new wrinkle (e.g. 'bustles') to take advantage of the rule made older boats very quickly uncompetitive.

Although its heyday was 30 years ago, the boat class continues to make its presence felt by holding its own in terms of popularity against some fern race fleets.