- OSTAR Start (Photo by Colin Merry)
Newport is eagerly anticipating the arrival of the winner of OSTAR 2009. At the 1200UT tracker report this morning,, Dutchman JanKes Lampe, had 201 miles left to reach the finish line and was steaming along at 8.6 Knots giving an ETA of sometime on Thursday afternoon.
JanKes has a comfortable lead of some 250 miles and has favourable winds to sweep him into the finish line which is located at the entrance to Newport and is between Castle Hill Light and Kettle Bottom Rock Buoy. He will be met by the OSTAR Race Office Team in a rib, plus many other spectator boats filled with sailing enthusiasts from the Newport sailing community.
Providing there are no hitches for La Promesse between now and the finish line,JanKes threatens to score a number of notable records.
He will be the first Dutchman to win OSTAR.
He will in all probability beat the record for the 40ft class by a considerable margin.
He will be the first mono hull to win since Eric Tabarly’s famous victory in 1976.
On corrected time however Rob Craigie in Jbellino is currently holding his own in IRC 1 with La Promesse lying in second place. The first four into Newport currently look like being La Promesse, Jbellino, Italian Roberto Westerman on Spinning Wheel and the first lady to finish looks like being Hannah White in Pure Solo. However the following trio have over 450 miles to go and anything can happen during this time. It’s not over until it’s over!