ceramco new zealand yacht

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Sir Peter Blake’s CERAMCO – A Legend Sails Home

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CERAMCO NEW ZEALAND, a 68ft Bruce Farr design, was a notable addition at the Rolex Sailing Regatta held at the St. Thomas Yacht Club , March 22-24 2013. The sleek CERAMCO was originally built for and raced by the legendary Sir Peter Blake in the1981-82 Whitbread Round the World Race, which he skippered with an all-Kiwi crew. Owner/Captain, Dianne Masters and crew all wore the red socks during the Rolex Regatta, a gesture made famous by Sir Peter to bring good luck.

How Masters came to own CERAMCO is quite a story. She grew up in Newport, RI, and as a youngster spent most of her time around the water. At age 18, she set sail from Newport to the Caribbean with little knowledge of boats or sailing other than the adventure stories she had heard. At her farewell party, her mother offered her $10,000 and a 1967 Mustang convertible to stay. Her Dad gave her $100 and told her not to fall off the boat!

Masters has had an encyclopedia of experience since her maiden voyage. Arriving in St. Thomas , she met the captain of a 53ft Blue Water Pearson and managed to fake cooking well enough to secure twelve weeks of charter. Becoming a passionate sailor, she moved aboard Sumurun, a classic 95ft Fife racing yacht. After having spent a couple of years working on a variety of vessels, she then joined an 80ft maxi racer on its way to Los Angeles, where she jumped ship. She worked for Soundings Magazine selling ad space, then returned east and bought a construction company.

In 2005 Masters spotted a one-line ad in Soundings for a 68ft Farr Aluminum Race Boat, at a good price. The owners, Fred and Eileen Mills (STYC members), had bought

CERAMCO from a doctor in Ft. Lauderdale, who had bought it from Peter Blake’s Trust. Eileen Mills said, “When Peter Blake designed the boat, he did it with the thought of ‘life after racing’ – cruising”, which the Mills did from 2002 – 2005, with their sons Nelson and Freddie.

In 2007 Masters sold everything and headed south to Bermuda and St. Thomas on CERAMCO.

When she purchased the boat, she was unaware of the yacht’s famous history. But after reading the book Blake’s Odyssey, she decided not to do the complete refit she had in mind. Below deck has been modified but everything topside is faithful to the original design. On learning she owned a special piece of New Zealand’s yachting history, Masters spearheaded a project to raise money to sail back to Auckland this year and donate CERAMCO to the NZ Maritime Museum.  When asked why, she answered, “I just think it’s the right thing to do.”

To accomplish this feat, Masters has launched a creative fundraiser by producing a giant photograph of CERAMCO, cutting it into 10,000 pieces and selling each piece for $10 a square. To participate, purchase one or more ‘pieces of history’ and follow her progress from the Caribbean to New Zealand. On arrival in Auckland, Masters plans to attend the special ‘Mast Falling Down’ party on September 17th, an annual tribute to Sir Peter Blake, CERAMCO and crew.

CERAMCO plans to leave St. Thomas around May 15th, cruise to the Galapagos Islands and then sail the longest downwind run in the world, to New Zealand. There, the boat will pick up a Kiwi crew and compete in the Rolex Sydney Hobart race in December. “In light winds, we don’t have a chance of winning, even with the red socks,” says Masters, “but give us at least 25 knots and we are untouchable”.

To help deliver and inspire, be part of Dianne Masters’ voyage by buying a few squares of the giant photograph! For information, visit: www.ceramconz.com or email: [email protected] or [email protected]

Capt. Jan Robinson’s Ship to Shore Cookbook Collection is available at your local marine or bookstore. Visit www.shiptoshoreINC.com email [email protected] Tel: 704-277-6521. Don’t miss the new cookbook added to Jan’s collection: DINING ON DECK

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Hi , I am happy to inform, that a full documentary about Sir Peter Blake is officially available: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/blakey

regards Andrzej Minkiewicz Maritime Films Festival JachtFilm Poland

I sailed on the boat for several years when it was in Newport Beach, Ca. Blake came out with us once. We were just cruising that day, but Blake shared a couple of sea stories about why the knotmetrer went all the way up to 30. When they were going around the world, they were going from Cape Town, South Africa to Fremantle, and lost the rig. They jury rigged a spinnaker pole, and with the storm jib, hit 30 knots. Those guys sure know how to make a boat go fast.

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Tanks ,it really helped with last minute homework.!!!!!!!!

Thanks I mean

That's good to hear!

this boat is for sale in usa florida http://gsaauctions.gov/gsaauctions/aucitsrh/?sl=41QSCI16024001

Who owns her now ?

Design № 90

WRTWR MAXI "CERAMCO NEW ZEALAND"

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Apart from the obvious requirements of strength, stability and safety, the basic performance design brief for CERAMCO NEW ZEALAND was to produce a yacht within a reasonable budget that could take line honors in the Southern Ocean legs of the 1981-82 Whitbread Round the World Race. It also had to have a chance on handicap in those legs and in the race overall.

In the case of CERAMCO NEW ZEALAND we opted for a boat designed primarily for speed, but with removal of any obvious rating penalty features where the effect on performance would be virtually unmeasurable but the effect on rating considerable.

Theoretically, the longer a yacht is the faster it is. This would normally be true in Round the Buoys or short ocean races where nearly unlimited crew power is available. But in a race such as the Whitbread, where boats are racing for as long as 40 days in one stretch, both the skipper, Peter Blake, and ourselves felt there were limitations to this relationship of speed and length. We finally felt 68 feet was the optimum length to satisfy the design requirements.

CERAMCO's performance in the 6 month, 27,000 mile 1981-82 Whitbread Round the World Race was outstanding. A full account of CERAMCO and her crew during this epic race has been written by skipper Peter Blake in his book "Blake's Odyssey."

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20.9 m/68'6"

16.8 m/55'4"

5.2 m/17'1"

3.245 m/10'8"

19,320 Kg/42,593 Lbs

7,847 Kg/17,299 Lbs

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Peter Blake

World champion yacht racer.

Less than three months later, Blake asked Pippa to marry him. They were married the same year, 1979. "He proposed to me in a marina in Miami in Florida," Pippa told the Sunday Telegraph, "and I just said yes straight away. I didn't hesitate. I think I'd passed a test. I knew right from the start that I was sort of sharing Peter with the team. Right up to the moment he was killed, there was always a team around Peter. For our honeymoon we sailed from here [Emsworth] to New Zealand—me and seven guys!"

In 1981-82, Blake competed in the third Whitbread race, this time as captain. The boat was called Ceramco New Zealand, and this one, too lost its mast during the race. But Blake and his resourceful crew managed to build a make-shift mast and get underway again within 24 hours of the mishap. They made it to Cape Town, where they put in a new mast, and went on to finish second in the race.

Blake entered the fourth Whitbread race in 1985 as captain of the Lion New Zealand, and again did not win. But the fifth Whitbread race, in 1989, was a charm for Blake; his boat, Steinlager II, won all six legs of the race, winning the overall race by only minutes.

Blake described life aboard the Steinlager II, on which there were no showers, and few changes of clothes for the crew of 15, to the BBC: "You don't notice the smells or whatever that develop because everyone's the same. But when you get into port and you go away for 24 hours and come back, well you see the look on people's face when they come down below for the first time, they just about fall over backwards, the stench is just terrible. You don't wash, see, in the southern ocean, you might not change your underwear for three weeks, and you get a bit of a layer of grease and goo that builds up over you, and you seem to be just fine."

In 1993, Blake sailed around the world with crew-mate Robin Knox-Johnson. The voyage broke the record for the fastest non-stop voyage around the world, and the pair won the Jules Verne trophy for sailing around the world in under 80 days. They circled the globe in 74 days, 22 hours, 17 minutes, and 30 seconds, in 1993.

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On Yachting; Peter Blake's Legacy Spans the World

By Herb McCormick

• Dec. 7, 2001

The lasting images of the New Zealand sailing star Sir Peter Blake will always be triumphant. In so many ports after so many of the world's greatest yachting events, there was Blake: his long, blond hair plastered with salt, a wide smile flashing beneath his mustache, a garish trophy of some sort thrust toward the heavens.

In both his 6-foot-5 presence and in his quiet but relentless competitiveness, Blake was a larger-than-life figure in his sport. Now he's gone, leaving behind his wife, Pippa, and two children, Sarah-Jane and James. He was shot Wednesday night by pirates who boarded his expedition vessel, the 130-foot Seamaster, off the coast of Brazil.

After 53 years and more than half a million sea miles, Blake's wild voyage is over. In the pursuit of sailboat racing, around-the-world and around-the-buoys, no one has ever achieved anything quite like it. Simply put, Peter Blake was easily the most accomplished sailor of our time.

In a pastime that, like so many others, is becoming increasingly specialized, Blake was the rare seaman who sought and found success across multiple disciplines.

He won the marathon offshore Whitbread Round-the-World Race and the inshore closed-course America's Cup, a pair of contests as different as night and day. He set a nonstop round-the-world record in a giant catamaran; commanded crews of 17 in skittish monohulls for weeks on end; and once triumphed in an epic race around Australia aboard a large trimaran with just one other crewman.

Two things can be said about Blake's yachting career. If the quest at hand was challenging, he embraced it. If it was winnable, he won it.

And remarkably, when Blake's active racing days were over, he turned around and went directly back to sea, to the one place it was obvious he truly belonged. There, first under the banner of the Cousteau Society and later on his own, he sailed on behalf of oceanographic research and environmental awareness.

It was at the conclusion of his latest such trip, an expedition up the Amazon River, that his life came to an end.

Blake was anything but a prodigy. It took him five attempts to achieve the first stated goal of his sailing life, which was victory in the Whitbread race. But in the 1989-90 edition of the race aboard his maxi-ketch Steinlager 2, he won in spectacular fashion, taking all six legs and vanquishing a fleet of 23 competitors.

In 1992 he got his first taste of the America's Cup imbroglios when he was hired to manage the New Zealand challenge in San Diego at the competition's 11th hour. The New Zealand effort fell short at the end, but Blake's appetite was whetted.

Between Cup regattas, he signed on with the British sailor Robin Knox-Johnston to compete in the Jules Verne Challenge, an attempt to sail around the world in less than 80 days. Aboard the 92-foot catamaran Enza New Zealand -- and, as always, with a loyal following of New Zealand Whitbread sailors at his side -- Blake set a record for a nonstop circumnavigation with a voyage of just under 75 days.

After that voyage, Blake was honored by being knighted.

In 1995, he was back in San Diego in firm control of a Team New Zealand challenge that mirrored his best traits: the squad was cool, understated and brutally efficient. With the young New Zealander Russell Coutts at the helm and Blake grinding the mainsheet, the Kiwi team swept the American defender Dennis Conner's team in five straight races.

When Blake and his boys returned with the Cup to New Zealand, they were hailed as conquering heroes.

For the 2000 Team New Zealand defense, Blake moved to a strictly administrative role and orchestrated another winning campaign, which destroyed the Prada Challenge from Italy by the familiar score of 5-0.

With nothing left to prove in the sport and a broader vision to nourish, Blake became the head of expeditions for the Cousteau Society and skipper of the group's aluminum research ketch, Antarctic Explorer. Several months later, Blake left the society but bought the boat, which he renamed Seamaster. Aboard it, in 2001, he led trips to Antarctica and the Amazon.

Blake's fellow New Zealander, the yacht broker Geoff Stagg, raced around the world with Blake in the early 1980's aboard a Whitbread entry called Ceramco New Zealand.

''He was fascinated by sea life and very knowledgeable,'' Stagg said by phone from Annapolis, Md. ''He was deeply offended whenever he saw pollution in the water. After he left the Cousteau Society, he went off to do his own thing. The great sadness is that he was trying to improve the world.''

“I can’t see any point in racing around the world for seven months with someone you don’t like.”  – Sir Peter Blake

Lion New Zealand was a Ron Holland designed masthead sloop, which gained the nickname the “Urban Assault Vehicle” when it survived and won the stormy Sydney-Hobart race of 1984. It appeared to be bullet proof and, sadly, it proved to be overly conservative.

By the end of the race, Blake was a household name. Even though Digby Taylor in Outward Bound had gained a better overall result (5th on handicap as opposed to Ceramco’s 11th), it was Blake’s determination to overcome adversity that was the big talking point.

Blake’s initial inclination after his first Whitbread experience had been to say ‘never again’. This was probably partly due to the disappointment of the outcome and partly because of career ambivalence. The way of a professional yachtsman was not clear at that stage and he was by no means certain he could sustain his nomadic way of life.

Similar thoughts attended the end of the Ceramco campaign and he told interviewers at the finish party in Portsmouth he would not do the Whitbread race again. However, even as the party continued long into the night, he an his patron, Sir Tom Clark stood discussing the “what ifs” and “might have beens”. They would probably both have denied it at the time, but, effectively, they were laying the groundwork for the next campaign.

It is not uncommon after any major endeavour for participants, successful or otherwise, to say never again, only later to recant. Blake did it several times. Of his decision to have another go at the Whitbread, he explained: “…when you have lived on an adrenalin high..you forget the discomforts and the misery…Your memory conveniently erases the bad times and calls up only on the good. It’s not… (the) real danger, thousands of miles from the closest land, that you remember. It’s the 300-mile days, the roller-coaster rides through big seas in gale- and even storm-force tailwinds, the excitement of arriving in Auckland, the anticipation of visiting exotic-sounding ports.”

For the fourth attempt, Blake was determined to have a full-on maxi yacht. If raising $NZ600,000 for Ceramco was a big task, the $NZ3 million a maxi campaign required was a whole new level.

Tom Clark set about putting a sponsorship package together with the $NZ2 million that it would require to build the boat. However, this price proved to be beyond the marketing capabilities of most New Zealand companies. Hence, Clark split up the costs with naming right sponsors and the campaign was to be funded by the public.

As with Ceramco, Lion proved her stealth finishing the Sydney-Hobart in first position, sailing through stormy conditions which cost one life and forced the retirement of 106 yachts from the race.

However, when it came to the Round the World Race, Lion’s sturdy design proved to be a downfall when it came to speed. In the first leg Lion finished second behind UBS from Switzerland. Leg 2 saw Lion arrive at a packed Auckland waterfront in fifth position, following a setback when they hit a whale. With an estimated 300,000 spectators, Lion was cheered along the course to move up into third place. The final leg was a game of catch up due to changeable weather and hitting another whale. The breeze picked up to 25knots which suited suited Lion perfectly and although she was unable to catch Drum, Lion completed the 1985 /86 Whitbread Round the World Race in second place.

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Ep 51- Simon Gundry

New Zealand has a proud tradition in the round the world race and a lot of that started with Ceramco New Zealand in the early 1980s – the first New Zealand-flagged boat to compete in the gruelling event. It was a campaign headed up by Sir Peter Blake and something that captured the imagination of Kiwis everywhere. But disaster struck on the first leg of the race when the boat’s mast came down in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean as the team were vying for the lead. It was a devastating blow for the crew, including Simon Gundry who is today’s guest on Broad Reach Radio.

Simon details what happened that day when the mast came down and how the crew rallied to sail 4000 miles under jury rig to complete the leg but also describes the inescapable feeling on board that they had let the nation down. He talks about their epic battles with the crew on Flyer in subsequent legs, including when they had their rivals in sight for 10 of the 24 days across the Southern Ocean to Cape Horn, and provides an insight into Peter Blake, from his unorthodox approach to crew selection to his recognition of the value of media to build support for Ceramco.

Simon is one of the characters of New Zealand sailing, and talks about the imaginary animals he had on board, his love of reciting poetry, how he managed to pull a team of yachties together to play in a rugby sevens tournament while in port in Argentina and the after-effects of one of their annual Mast Falling Down parties. He’s a terrific story-teller who was able to give a detailed insight into that 1981/82 Whitbread Round the World Race and a campaign that changed Kiwi yachting.

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Racing yacht runs aground at Lyttelton days before Sail GP regatta

Pierre Nixon

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A 12m racing yacht has beached in Lyttelton Harbour days before Christchurch hosts the glitzy international Sail GP regatta.

The Harbourmaster’s Office at Environment Canterbury said it was notified of a recreational vessel aground near Pāua-o-Hinekotau Head, west of Te Waipapa/Diamond Harbour on Wednesday evening.

“All five crew were rescued by the Coastguard and returned safely to Lyttelton [on Wednesday] night,” said Environment Canterbury’s regional on-scene commander, Emma Parr.

The racing yacht remains aground at the base of a cliff with difficult access by foot.

The yacht has 15 litres of diesel on board, in sealed tanks, but Parr says the risk of environmental damage from its grounding is low.

“Weather conditions are not favourable today, which means that a safe recovery attempt may not be possible prior to SailGP,” she said.

Around 22,000 people are expected to flock to Lyttelton over this weekend to watch the Sail GP event.

Lyttelton Port was closed overnight as a precaution due to the vessel being unsecured and the potential of floating debris.

“The yacht has remained in the same position but is significantly damaged. It is now secure via ropes to the shore,” she said.

Environment Canterbury says it’s monitoring the situation closely and working with the owner, insurers and salvors to collect debris as required.

“There may be loose debris under the surface of the water. We are asking the public to stay well clear of this operational area,” Parr said.

The international sailing competition set for Lyttelton Habour this weekend, SailGP , will still go ahead as planned.

The grounding comes after a clam fishing trawler ran aground on Waikuku Beach on Monday.

Maritime NZ sent investigations staff to the scene to start inquiries. The investigation into the grounding is ongoing.

The Herald understands the boat has since been moved back into the water without any damage.

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Candela’s electric ferries multiply as the startup lines up $25M in new funding

Electric boat maker Candela is approaching cruising speed with $25 million in new funding and the first commercial deployment of its new P-12 ferry in New Zealand. The company has global ambitions for its highly efficient boats and has completed and delivered dozens of them — which is a lot in this industry!

Candela has been slowly upping the size of its vessels for years, starting with the considerably smaller C-7 and C-8 (noting the length in meters) — of which, as of this week, they have now produced a total of 70. The P-12, a ferry design that can handle up to 30 passengers, made its debut late last year .

Just last week, the P-12 was given its first assignment: ferry people around New Zealand’s Lake Manapōuri , a scenic destination but also, more importantly, the site of the country’s largest hydroelectric power station. And now staff at that station can get to work via clean-running boat rather than driving, which the companies estimate will save around 240 tons of emissions per year. It’s a start, and it will help keep the lake clean and quiet.

International interest in these boats is also evident in the participation of Groupe Beneteau, a more than century-old boating company that makes thousands of vessels yearly, in the funding round. Groupe Beneteau CEO Bruno Thivoyon expressed in the press release that investing in Candela makes sense as part of the company’s “ecological transition objectives, scaling up innovative solutions for more sustainable boating.”

Many legacy boating companies are embracing electric engines and next-generation tech; I spoke with the head of another major manufacturer, Brunswick’s Dave Foulkes, at CES about it. He said that the collaborations are fruitful because the small, growing companies need the income and reach, while the larger ones need ready-to-deploy tech. Like any other industry, you have to know when to buy and when to build, and big boating companies are happy to buy — or invest.

Candela’s boats use hydrofoils with electric engines mounted on the bottom to effectively fly above the surface of the water once they get past a certain speed, vastly reducing energy consumption — historically and understandably a sticking point for electric boating. The approach does necessitate a powerful autopilot to keep it balanced, and despite their assurances, I wonder about how they’d handle log collisions, but overall the advantages seem to outweigh the drawbacks.

I drove one over the summer in Seattle (watching closely for logs, rather common in Elliott Bay) and wished they would replace the gas-chugging fast passenger ferries with P-12s. Candela isn’t the only one pursuing this market, either; Navier is also attempting to woo coastal communities with the draw of quiet, energy-efficient transit and is currently shuttling Stripe employees around the Bay Area . And while Zin Boats has been quiet for some time, they are also nailing down markets for the next version of their vessel.

The $25 million round was led, as mentioned, by Beneteau, with participation from EQT Ventures, Ocean Zero LLC, and Kan Dela AB.