I was out sailing on the Hauraki Gulf a couple of weeks ago, and Steinlager 2 came past our little yacht, as graceful and imposing as ever. Great to see.
All these guys of that era had been a great inspiration. Peter, Pierre Fehlman (French sailor) ... they all had been an inspiration for me. I started in 1992/1993 my own Whitebread campaign, got the sponsor for a 2 boat campaign, unluckily the whitebread hq didn't follow the sponsor's needs for media coverage in the Polish market, so we lost the deal ;-( the target was to participate in the whitbread 1996-1997 ... time flies by.
They ran aground due to inexperience if they knew what they were doing they would have spliced the main brace and weigh anchor to make sure it was heavy enough
I was sailing in the Solent at the end of the 89/90 Whitbread and it was blowing quite hard, we were all reefed in and Steinlager 2 was sailing down towards Southampton under full sail with the boats around struggling to keep up. Deeply impressive.
I used to work with former F&P crew Tom W a few years ago. He said that F&P was marginally faster in stronger winds and they did a number of consecutive 400 mile days in the Southern Ocean. But the lighter conditions closer to shore at the end of each leg favoured Steinlager.
yes I was living out at Waimauku, felt saw heard the wind shift Blake was a snob, just ignored the builders of Lion, when he wandered into the shed he had backing from Tom and his crew liked him, but there was another side he died of stupidity but yes he put us on the map for sure
