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?

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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.