Having taken line honours in leg one from Las Palma to Cape Verde, Oyster 595 Sydney Rock crossed the finish line in 2nd place in the monohull division – an astounding result considering she was sailing with only 'white sails' so no spinnaker or cruising shoot onboard, choosing to sail with twin headsails instead. Owner John Bronger said: "We weren't going to race or be competitive, but we couldn't help ourselves."
Oyster 575 Ahlam, the first Lebanese entry in the ARC+ kept on Sydney Rock’s stern in a close 'battle' to take 2nd place, ultimately finishing just 40 minutes apart after 2200 miles at sea.
Also enjoying some friendly competition were two Oysters from Ireland – 565 Tír na nÓg and 675 Rí-Rá. Tír na nÓg was ahead of nearly the whole fleet up to and past the Cape Verdes and was the overall leader on handicap. After a total of 16 days at sea, Rí-Rá finished approximately 12 hours later.
In the ARC sailing classes there were five podium finishes amongst the Oyster fleet, with Oyster 565 Larimar taking first place in Class B and 565 Tír na nÓg following closely behind in 3rd. Oyster 595 JaZoFi (Class A), 56 Asante (Class C) and 406 Penny Oyster (Class E) all took 3rd place in their classes respectively.
"We take pride in Oysters being the safest, strongest and most luxurious bluewater yachts on the water, and make no compromises when it comes to performance," says Oyster CEO, Ashley Highfield. "The achievements of the Oyster fleet taking part in this year’s ARC and ARC+ demonstrate the combination of speed and performance, in particular with the team onboard Oyster 595 Sydney Rock who took lines honours in the first leg from Las Palmas to Cape Verde."
Rob Humphreys also commented on the remarkable results achieved by Oyster. "Extremely pleasing results from the ARC, with many different Oyster models figuring highly in the results. This represents the essence of what we have been striving for over the years – to produce yachts that are intrinsically fast in their passagemaking capability, with premium placed on a steadfast pace and comfortable motions, great at maintaining high base speeds rather than the stop/start progress that can be the tendency among much lighter displacement yachts."
Congratulations to all the fleet on their successful Atlantic crossing.
ARC and ARC+ results are available to view here.
