Andrea Mura wins OSTAR 2013
by Alex Burgis & Jerry Freeman 14 Jun 2013 08:58 BST
27 May 2013
Andrea Mura wins OSTAR 2013 © Billy Black
The mighty monohull Vento di Sardegna stormed across the finish line at Newport Rhode Island USA with the delighted and exhausted Italian skipper Andrea Mura at the helm to claim victory in the Royal Western Yacht Club's Original Singlehanded Trans-Alantic Race, OSTAR.
The threat of rain clouds and the fading light could not dampen Mura's joy at clinching his second Trans Atlantic victory in successive years to record the unique double of Two-Star (two handed) and OSTAR (solo) back to back.
The official time keepers stationed on the finish line at Castle Hill, race director David Southwood of the RWYC and Norman Bailey of the host Newport Yacht Club recorded Mura's finish time at 22:12 UTC (18:12 local time) to give an elapsed time for the three thousand mile solo epic of 17 days 10 hours 22 minutes at an average speed of 7 knots.
Mura had regained the lead from Roger Langevin in the trimaran Branec ten days ago when 1600 miles out and stretched his advantage to 150 miles last Sunday when the first named storm of the 2013 hurricane season, aptly also named 'Andrea', slowed the front runners south of Newfoundland. The Frenchman tried every move possible to close the gap, often sailing close to the coast of Nova Scotia in search of a favorable slant in the breeze but Mura using all his stamina and experience covered all the moves and kept the door firmly closed. Langevin is expected in Newport on Friday afternoon.