BOC Challenge : All but Dismasted Boat Have Completed 3rd Leg

America’s Lone Star and Finland’s Colt by Rettig finished 46 minutes apart off Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach to become the 14th and 15th boats to complete the 8,300-mile third leg of the solo around-the-world race.

All the boats are now in port, except for the dismasted Canadian entry, Joseph Young, which at last report was 1,000 miles from Cape Horn in the Pacific and proceeding under a jury rig of spinnaker poles.

Mark Schrader on Lone Star sailed the longest leg of the BOC Challenge in 52 days 8 hours 42 minutes, finishing just ahead of Pentti Salmi on Colt by Rettig, which stopped briefly at East Falkland Island for autopilot repair.

The times for the two boats for the leg were faster than all but three of the 10 finishers of the 1982-83 race.

Lone Star is a Valiant 47 cutter built for the race in Gordonville, Tex. Colt is a 46.5 Serena sloop built in Sweden. Although fast, both are basically cruising yachts rather than stripped out racers.

John Hughes of Halifax, the 26-year-old skipper of the dismasted 41-foot sloop, was notified by radio that his replacement mast would arrive March 21 in Port Stanley on East Falkland Island aboard a Royal Air Force transport plane.

Hughes still was almost 1,400 miles from Port Stanley, but he has achieved some good speeds, including a recent day’s run of 133 miles.

Repaired and remasted, he must then sail over 1,500 miles to Rio. He has a chance of making it in time for the April 11 start of the fourth and final leg of the race to Newport.

If he does make it, and make it on time, his feat will be a marvel. He would have sailed more than 5,000 nautical miles and rounded Cape Horn, the Everest of sailing, without a mast and with just a small jib held in place by two aluminum spinnaker poles fastened in an A-frame.