Bella Mente RORC Caribbean 600
The 72-foot Mini Maxi declared the overall winner as she achieves a podium finish 3 years in a row.
Hap Fauth’s American JV72, Bella Mente has been declared the overall winner of the 2015 RORC Caribbean 600. Whilst several yachts are still racing, by the morning of Friday 27th February none of the remaining teams had the ability to better Bella Mente’s corrected time under IRC. It was third time lucky for Bella Mente as the Maxi 72 has finished second overall for the past two years.
Bella Mente arrives at the dock after completing the RORC Caribbean 600, taking 1st place overall. Courtesy Ted Martin
Bella Mente was also the winner of the highly competitive IRC Zero Class and retained the Bella Mente Trophy as the first IRC Yacht to finish that is wholly manually powered, without either variable or moveable ballast. A delighted Hap Fauth spoke about the achievement and was full of praise for both the race team and shore crew:
“Friday, before the race start, we had a structural problem with the boat and limped home from practice to assess the problem. We took the boat apart and for two days the shore team set up a temporary boat building workshop and did a great job just to get us to the start line. Throughout the race we had no problems at all and my hat goes off to our ground crew.
“This is the third go at winning this race and three is the beauty! This is the third Bella Mente since 2006 and the majority of this team have been with me for at least five years – it is an outstanding group of guys. They like each other, we have a good time together – they are all mates. Everybody puts safety first, that’s the …read more
