The Royal Cape and Walvis Bay Yacht Clubs under the auspices of SA Sailing and the Namibian Sailing Association respectively, are very proud to announce the second Macs Shipping Southern Star Race from Cape Town to Walvis Bay .

The Race gets underway at noon on Monday the 10 th of March and this year the fleet has doubled in size and now includes some of South Africa ’s finest skippers and sailors, including Springboks JJ Proveyeur and Geoff Meek.

Amongst this impressive sailing line-up are the youngest crew in the race, co-skippers Robbie van Rooyen and Gerry Hegie. Onboard the yacht Al, the average age is 22 and these competitive young sailors are part of the Royal Cape Yacht Club and the City of Cape Town Youth Development Programme . They will be hotly contesting the other six yachts in the race - CROCS, the winner of the inaugural race last year; Hifidelity (Geoff Meek and Etienne de Villiers); After You (JJ Proveyeur);

Lobelia (Gordon Kling and Rob Meek); Benba.co.za (Dale Kushner) and Quicksilver (Mike Klostermann).

The event is unique in that it is the longest coastal race in South Africa and has some interesting navigational challenges. The West Coast is notorious for fog and gale force winds are often experienced off Luderitz. Charts warn Navigators to be at least 50 miles offshore in certain areas because of unchartered waters off the Skeleton Coast .

For many years yachtsmen have spoken of racing from Cape Town to Walvis Bay .

Transporting the Yachts back to Cape Town was always the hurdle. In 2007, Macs Shipping came forward and sponsored the inaugural race, shipping all the yachts back to Cape Town .

Chairman of the Race, world famous yachtsman, John Martin said : “Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Macs Shipping, and in particular to the Managing Director, Felix Scheder-Bieschin, we at Royal Cape Yacht Club are very happy to be staging the second running of this event”.

“The great co-operation of Transnet in Cape Town and Namport, the National Ports Authority in Namibia have reduced the overall costs significantly and we greatly appreciate their support.” “Cape Town Radio, as always, are most co-operative and will be the communications centre with two broadcasts per day, for those wanting to stay in touch with the racing yachts”.

Echoing his thanks to Transnet and Namport, Chairman of Macs Shipping, Felix Scheder-, said: - "I feel very proud to be associated with this regatta, and to have such a distinguished fleet, small but quality . I am also excited that this is such an international event, involving three nationalities, South Africa , Namibia and Germany , since Macs is a German company.

John Martin added :- “This year, we see a fleet of seven highly competitive yachts participating, Fierce competition is envisaged as any one of these seven yachts could win the race on handicap.With good winds and good luck, the first yacht could be in Walvis Bay by as early as Wednesday 12 th March.

For further information, please contact :-

Jeanne van Rooyen
Tel: 27-21-7881954 / 082 4529698
Email: jvrjm@mweb.co.za

John Martin (Chairman of the Race)
Tel: 083 310 1440
Dee Siebert (Royal Cape Yacht Club )
Tel: 27-21-4211354 / 0722125382