Ultra 30?

Interesting....thanks. There is an element of semantics. You are taking "professional" to mean full-time paid sailor. I'm taking it to mean that someone else is paying the bills.

Whichever you accept, the fact remains that there were no non-sponsored owners. In other words, Joe Average sailor, who pays his own way, didn't come out to play. I don't mean crew, I mean owners. When it comes to big expensive boats, you need crew to sail them but first you need owners who can find the money to get to the start line in the first place.

All the boats were sponsored! The crews were not getting large amounts of hard cash from them however! We were loaned a vehicle to tow the boat and given our sailing kit! A small team was employed to look after the fleet and move them to each venue. There was a mixture of profesional and amateur crew, most of our team had day jobs except 1 or 2!  Not all helms were pros either! Russel Peters , John Callcut ,Pete Newlands just to name a few were owner drivers and worked for a living!

Interesting to hear the words "Ultra30" again! and interesting to read some of the comments both true and false!

After a few seasons racing on B&Q/ Virgin ,I was recruited by lawrie to sail on Frontera. The boats were fantastic to sail and we all enjoyed the weekends racing at various venues againts some tough competition.

Each team usually had one support rib, this carried some spares,a bit of sailing kit, water etc. It was also allowed to assist during a capsize(which we did from time to time). Some boats were easier to right as there was an option with keel weights. (eg RM computers had no weight in the keel others had up to 100KG!)  Depending on conditions the rib would either pull the bow into wind to assist or attempt to right the boat with a line from the wings! The boats became more difficult to get up right when the trapeze wires and additional stiffening was fitted to the mast.

It was a professional circuit however many good amateur dinghy sails were drafted in. I believe the event sponsorship money was split between teams to fund the running of the boats and expences for the crews. The racing format was kept  short and simple to make it attractive to TV. By the end the coverage was pretty good with onboard cameras etc.However the BBC turned its attention to match racing and the Olympics....and that was it!

Its true that the fleet only really has a value if kept togther. As far as I know two have been sold , one has gone lake racing in Europe the other to be converted into something else!

I recently visited a friend in Hampshire who has three of them in a field. Sad to say they are covered in green slime and weeds!!

I don't think they will come back, It's a bit like the sad story of  Concorde!!

Nice to see a pic of the black boat again! This was the Frontera re branded  as Star Allience.

Cheers,

Fumes

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