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Welcome to SOLO, Australia's most famous ocean racing yacht. SOLO is 51 years old. She was launched in Sydney in 1955 built by a Swiss engineer named Vic Meyer and designed by Allan Payne who also designed Gretel a famous America's cup yacht. Not long after launching, SOLO embarked on a successful racing career spanning over eight years from 1955 to 1963. In that time she won four Sydney to Hobart and five Brisbane to Gladstone races as well as a Trans Tasman Auckland to Sydney race in 1961. In 1962 Vic sailed SOLO around Australia. It took thirteen weeks and she was the first sailing boat to do so since Matthew Flinders way back in 1802. Vic gave up racing and prepared SOLO for cruising. He was a mature man - fifty years old when he first launched SOLO so he thought that he had better get moving. In 1965 he went cruising and over the next ten years he sailed several times into the Pacific and around the world three times clocking up over 300,000 nautical miles. Vic became somewhat notorious for his preference for all girl crews. Copyright
© 2006 Adventure Sailing on SOLO. |
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