Celebrating a decade of high-octane big boat racing in UK waters, this year marks the tenth edition of the Artemis Challenge – the jewel in the crown of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week. The ocean racing titans will start from the Royal Yacht Squadron line at 09:50s on Thursday (11th August).
For 2016 two giant trimarans, Phaedo3 and Concise 10, will take part in the 50 nautical mile sprint around the Isle of Wight in a winner takes all match race.
Both the striking white and gold MOD70 Phaedo3 skippered by Lloyd Thornburg, and the blue racing machine Concise 10 captained by Ned Collier-Wakefield return to the Challenge for a second year in 2016.
Taking line honours in the recent Royal Ocean Racing Club Cowes to St Malo race, Collier-Wakefield is looking forward to showing off his boat’s prowess closer to home.
“For us, the Artemis Challenge is always one of the highlights of the year. Being able to race against the world’s top offshore boats in our own back yard really makes the event special.”
Following the recent capsize of fellow 2015 Artemis Challenge competitor Oman Sail – Musandam in the Transat Quebec-St Malo, Concise 10 and Pheado3 will now go head-to-head around the Island in what could be one of the fastest Artemis Challenges yet.
Collier-Wakefield continued:
“We have spent the last year racing against Phaedo 3 in the Atlantic so I’m sure this is going to be another tightly fought battle right from the starting gun.”
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Thornburg is also looking forward to a round the island grudge match. He said:
“We’re extremely happy to have been invited to race in the tenth edition of the Artemis Challenge.
“It’s always a great pleasure to line up with Team Concise, they are great competitors. I’m sure we’ll be pushing each other the whole way around.”
As well as the £10,000 prize money up for grabs for the winner’s charity of choice – Concise 10 is racing for Dreams Come True, while Phaedo3 sails for Great Ormond Street Hospital – the MOD70 teams will be pushing their sails and their sailors to the max in order to beat the round the Isle of Wight World record.
Set in 2012 by French sailing legend Michel Desjoyeaux and his crew aboard the MOD70 Foncia, the current outright world record stands at two hours, 21 minutes and 25 seconds. Many have tried to break this world record, Sir Ben Ainslie included, but Pheado3 has so far come the closest in a time of two hours, 23 minutes and 23 seconds, in this year’s Round the Island race, a slightly shorter course than the full Artemis Challenge and outright record course.
In an interesting twist, Phaedo3 is in fact the re-named Foncia, so the team will be trying to beat their boat’s own record this Cowes Week.
Not only could conditions on the day put pay to Phaedo3’s world record ambitions, so could Concise 10. Having beaten their MOD70 rivals racing round Barbados earlier this year, but just missing out on the Round the Island race win, Collier-Wakefield and his team are gunning for an Artemis Challenge victory as he explained:
“Winning the race and/or breaking the record would be a fantastic achievement for the team. We have had the boat for just over a year now, so we are still learning how to get the most out of her.
“The battle between us and Phaedo3 is often described as David vs Goliath in terms of our budgets, so it would make it even more special for us to take this win”.
