Mansell sailing well

Press, 14 June 1984, Page 40

Mansell sailing well

NZPA staff correspondent London

New Zealander John Mansell has reported he is in good shape and maintaining steady progress as he nears the midway point in the single-handed trans-At-lantic race.

Race headquarters in Plymouth said the Cook Strait ferry master, who was forced to hove to for 12 hours late last week to make repairs to his 10.67 m catamaran Double Brown, was fit and well.

The delay for repairs meant that Captain Mansell

lost the leading position in class IV for yachts from 9.14 m to 10.67 m, which he had held since the start in Plymouth on June 2. Race headquarters said that after covering 1343 miles of the 3000 miles to Newport, Rhode Island, he is now fifth in the class and 35th over all. The class IV leader is City of Slidell, a 35ft monohull skippered by the American, Louis Tonizzo, which is 25th over all. The over-all leader is still the Briton, Peter Phillips, in his 60ft trimaran Travacrest Seaway. He was within 1053 miles of the finish line at Newport at last report.

Several of the fancied high-technology French multi-hulls have already been forced out of the classic and one casualty was Jeff Houlgrave’s 60ft tri-

maran, Colt Cars GB. The trimaran, in which New Zealand’s Dame Naomi James and her late husband. Rob, won the 1982 RoundBritain race, was dismasted and had to be abandoned.

0 The 25m Hong Kong ketch, Elevation, is racing towards the finish in steady winds about 150 nautical miles clear of the fleet in the closing stages of the Bay of Islands to Tahiti yacht race, the Press Association reports. Elevation is expected to finish the 2200 nautical mile race late today or early tomorrow.

At last radio contact on Tuesday she was 475 nautical miles from Tahiti, chased by the Auckland sloop, Anticipation, and Wellington’s Southpac and Black Sheep.