GOR Leg 2 prize giving at the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club
by Oliver Dewar 27 Jan 2012 21:09 NZDT
26 January 2012
Global Ocean Race Leg 2 Prize Giving in Wellington © Oliver Dewar
On Thursday evening local time, the double-handed, Class40 Global Ocean Race (GOR) Leg 2 prize giving was held at the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club (RPNYC) on Oriental Parade on the western shore of Wellington Harbour.
The prize giving’s guest of honour, the Mayor of Wellington, Celia Wade-Brown, was joined by friends and family of the teams, team sponsors, club members and the media at the RPNYC’s waterside clubhouse and presented all the GOR teams with a Koru, unfurling fern frond, glass blown sculpture representing new life, growth, strength and peace, awarded by Wellington City Council.
In addition to the leg prizes, Conrad Colman, skipper of Leg 2 winner, Akilaria RC2 Cessna Citation, collected two Luminox Steel Colormark watches for his unbroken, GOR bluQube 24-hour run record of 359.1 nautical miles in Leg 2, accepting the rugged, high night-vision watches from the GOR’s Official Timekeeper on behalf of his Leg 2 co-skipper, Sam Goodchild, who has returned to the UK.
For Marco Nannini and Hugo Ramon of Akilaria Class40 Financial Crisis, the prize giving was a hectic evening. The Italian-Spanish duo was awarded the GOR Leg 2 Media Award for the quality of video footage, images and blog content, winning a year’s subscription to Seahorse Magazine and TheDailySail.com. Nannini and Ramon also bagged the Leg 2 Navigation Prize for handling their Class40 impeccably through gales reaching 60 knots in the Roaring Forties as they raced south of Australia, each winning a handheld, Garmin eTrex20 GPS including a worldwide basemap.
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