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Yachting World has been asking top sailors and marine industry gurus to choose the coolest and most innovative yachts of our times, and ocean racer Nick Moloney nominates the Open 50. Here’s the report:
“I’d been intrigued by solo or short-handed sailing since the early days of the BOC Challenge (Around Alone 5 Oceans) and was blown away by the wide beam Finot-Conq designs that began to push the parameters of form stability with incredibly wide beams,” recalls Nick Moloney, as he nominates his favorite Open 50.
“In the build up to our 1997-98 Whitbread Round the World Race, we were constructing our yacht Toshiba in Newport, which is also where the Open 50 Cray Valley was also coming to life for Jean-Pierre (JP) Mouligne and his campaign towards the 1998 Around Alone Race. I snuck away from the sail loft the day that Cray Valley first went in the water and watched from a distance. I remember saying to myself ‘I’d give anything to sail that beautiful boat’…
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