Final GOR 2011-2012 prizes awarded

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After five grueling legs that took them around the globe, the Australian/New Zealand team of Conrad Colman and Scott Cavanough of Class40 Cessna Citation are the official winners of the Global Ocean Race. Their complete racing time and average speed was 150d 02h 59m 39s at 8.96kts earning them a total of 162 points. The final times and scores of all the GOR Class40 teams can be found at the GOR website.

The four teams who competed in the race have all arrived at the finish line in Les Sables d'Olonne. They were honored at an official event of the GOR 2011-12 in Les Sables d’Olonne at Salle Audubon on Boulevard Pasteur in the middle of Les Sable’s old town. The teams were congratulated in messages from the Rt. Hon. John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and Dale Kushner, Commodore of the Royal Cape Yacht Club, Cape Town. Each participating team was presented with stainless steel, chromed sculptures by the Charleston artist, Fred Moore, depicting Class40 sails with the distinctive orange flat-top mainsail unique to GOR Category for their completion of the 32,000-mile circumnavigation. 

Awards were also given to individual teams and sailors by the various sponsors of the GOR such as Luminox, Seahorse Magazine, thedailysail.com, Garmin and Celox Sailing. Among the many awards distributed, Conrad Colman and Scott Cavanough received the bluQube 24-hour Run Prize having hit the highest average speed in Leg 5 with Cessna Citation traveling 339.2nm in 24 hours while sailing in the mid-North Atlantic. Phillippa Hutton-Squire and Nick Leggatt of Phesheya-Racing were given the Cape Horn Navigation Award for predicting the most accurate ETA when 1,000 miles west of the world’s southernmost cape.

Josh Hall, Race Director of the GOR, expressed the general sentiment of appreciation for the race felt by all those in attendance  saying, “We’ve had a very warm welcome here in beautiful Les Sables d’Olonne and we’re very proud to finish this edition of the GOR in such a famous sailing town,” commented Hall. “I also think the GOR competitors and Race Organisation should thank themselves,” he added. “This race is all about people,” Hall explained. “It’s a race run by sailors for sailors and it’s a race that has to thank – on behalf of the organisers and the skippers – all the families, the children, the sponsors and the friends and supporters who came down to the pontoons in the stopovers to help the teams,” said the Race Director. “I think we can be really, really proud of the impact that the race and the individual teams have had around the world, so thank you all very much.”

By Ocean Navigator