Marcus Blackmore buys ETNZ TP52

Former Australian Farr 40 champion Marcus Blackmore has bought the 2009 Audi MedCup TP52 champion Emirates Team New Zealand and intends campaigning her seriously in the major Australian inshore regattas this coming season.

He has the Botin and Carkeek design team working on modifications to optimise the boat for IRC handicap racing and will take delivery after the boat completes the current Audi MedCup circuit’s last regatta in Cagliari, Sardinia, from September 20-25.

The boat, steered by Dean Barker with a crew of Emirates Team New Zealand America’s Cup sailors, is currently leading the 2010 Audi MedCup scoreboard after three regattas and with two to sail, with 97.5 points from Quantum Racing (Terry Hutchinson, USA) 126 and Artemis (Paul Cayard, Sweden), 143.

Blackmore, who has been to the Mediterranean to sail with the ETNZ crew on the boat, hopes to have the boat in Australia in time to prepare for the Rolex Rating Series in Sydney in December. “They are very impressive boats to sail, just like the Farr 40s only bigger.”

“My plan is basically to do regattas,” says Blackmore: Audi Geelong Week, Audi Sydney Regatta Week, Port Stephens and he has accommodation booked at Hamilton Island for Audi Hamilton Island Race Week 2011.

Blackmore has no intention of doing Rolex Sydney-Hobart and other long offshore races with one exception: “Being a Queenslander I might even do the Brisbane-Gladstone race.”

Adam Beashel, Emirates Team New Zealand’s strategist from Australia, briefly back at his Lake Macquarie home this week before returning to the Med Circuit, hopes to sail some of the regattas with Blackmore.

Blackmore, who may also charter a boat to do the Farr 40 worlds in Sydney from February 20-23, took a break of two seasons from sailing to go cruising the Pacific in his motor yacht, which is currently in Tahiti.

He says: “I miss sailing and need to get back into it. I just enjoy sailing with all these young people as I did in the Farr 40s. When you get older, you need a bigger boat.”

He will base the boat in Pittwater, hopefully at Royal Prince Alfred YC and has already signed up many of his former Farr 40 crewmen, including Billy Merrington, Peter Johnson, Tim Wiseman who will be boat boss and Terry Whetton as crew boss.

Blackmore, one of the founders of the Farr 40 class in Australia, also hopes to get the TP52s racing as a class in Australian regattas. The TP52 class’s international manager Rob Weiland has promised to help. “If we can do that I think it will help rejuvenate yachting a bit. Not a lot of people are building new boats.

“By the end of this year there should be ten TP52s racing in Australia. And quite a few TP52s will be coming on the market at the end of this Med season. It’s expensive but a relatively cheap option compared to building a boat.”

- Bob Ross