Born again Virgin

The 99-foot Juan Kouyoumdjian designed super maxi Speedboat grabbed our attention when she arrived in the states in early summer, and was fired up in late June to set a Transatlantic record before they broke a daggerboard on the first day. They returned to Newport, RI for repairs and evaluation, and decided to wait until the better weather in October or Novemeber to try again.

In the meantime, Sir Richard Branson thought it would be fun for this to be "his" record, and proceeded to coat the boat with his Virgin Money branding and hold a splashy media event to announce this latest adventure, like it was all his idea. Near as we can tell it is the same program as always, but Branson gets to ride along with two of his kids, and boat owner Alex Jackson gets some cash for the trouble.


Oh yea, Sir Keith Mills, Team Principal of TEAMORIGIN America's Cup team, thought he would jump in and gain some attention too.