RISE OF BLACK SHEEP

How did a relatively new team on the Sun Fast 3600 Black Sheep win the 2019 RORC Season’s Points Championship?

Last year’s RORC’s offshore season saw stunning racing for more than 600 yachts across 14 events, totalling some 6,000 miles. The final result for the overall IRC winner – for which there is no discard – came down to a match in the 600-mile Middle Sea Race, against another Sun Fast 3600, Bellino, sailed doublehanded by Rob Cragie and Deb Fish.

The Black Sheep story, however, is not about a single year’s campaign, nor is it centred on an owner who gathered a team after buying a boat. Black Sheep’s five-strong core crew first came together on the same watch during the 2013/14 Clipper Round the World Race. After that they chartered a First 40.7 for a Rolex Fastnet Race campaign in 2015. Next they decided on an ambitious three-year campaign with the aim of winning the RORC series overall. Trevor Middleton had the means to buy a boat and pay the bills, so he became the owner.

“This was about the boat and the team,” says Trevor. “It’s not about me, just because I pay the bills – it’s about the team.

“A big chunk of the crew met on the 2013-14 Clipper Round the World Race. That was effectively the first sailing I’d done and the first time I’d ever slept on a yacht. It’s also where I became friends with the core of what’s now the crew on Black Sheep: Jake Carter, Steve Mabey, Lindsay Evans, Matt Morton and Paul Hardy. Jake skippers the boat – he is definitely the most experienced of us.

“After the Clipper we decided to have a go at a RORC season, chartering a First 40.7, for three qualifying races, plus the Fastnet, in 2015. At the end of that I decided it was time to buy a boat, which was launched in August 2016.