Sail Canada Sailor of the Month

Sail Canada’s Sailor of the Month award acknowledges sailing achievements by Canadians involved or associated with the sport in all its forms. Here is the latest recipient:

It’s been a busy year for Richard Clarke aboard Wizard, an American Volvo Ocean 70 owned by brothers David and Peter Askew based in the Baltimore area.

Richard was part of the team that crewed Wizard to first-place finishes in the RORC Caribbean 600 in February. the Transatlantic Race in July, and most recently in the 2019 Rolex Fastnet Race.

The team just won the Fastnet Challenge Cup, the overall prize for the 48th edition of this 605nm race that had 388 starters set off on August 3. The Fastnet Race is considered to be the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s pinnacle offshore contest, and their victory ended a 5-year run of French winners.

After the purchase of Wizard, the Askews decided to load it up with a masterful crew consisting of Volvo Ocean Race skipper Charlie Enright and his business partner Mark Towill with who he’d run two VOR campaigns, Richard and Rob Greenhalgh who have won the Volvo Ocean Race, and Will Oxley, a renown Australian Navigator.

“[Our winning streak] can’t last forever – you just try to make it last as long as you can,” said David Askew. “That being said, we definitely have a formula. We decide what we want to do and then find the right machine and the right people to get it done.”

Richard is a 5-time Canadian Olympian, was the Sail Canada Male Athlete of the year in 1993, and Sailor of the Year in 1999. Richard is not a newcomer to offshore racing either, having won the 2001-02 Volvo Ocean Race aboard Illbruck and taking home the Gerry Roufs Trophy for achievement in international Offshore Racing the same year.

Congratulations to our Sailor of the Month – Richard Clarke

Sail Canada’s Sailor of the Month award acknowledges sailing achievements by Canadians involved or associated with the sport in all its forms. Sail Canada encourages the submission of noteworthy Canadian sailing activities to sailorofthemonth@sailing.ca.