Oman Sail’s 100-ft A100 class tri-maran Majan swept into Table Bay, Cape Town, in bright moonshine at 04.40am early this morning (Tuesday 2 March) after an epic Indian Ocean dash from the Sultanate of Oman.

Last night saw the yacht rounding Cape Point and flying down the Peninsula at speeds of over 30 knots in strong south easterly winds gusting up to 50 knots.

The Majan is moored at the Team Shosholoza base, East Quay in the V&A Waterfront – between the Cape Grace Hotel and the BOE Building – and the public is welcome to come and view this super hi-tech speed machine capable of ripping across Table Bay at speeds of over 30 knots.

The giant Majan  is one of the world’s biggest and fastest yachts and the first of a new breed of racing multi-hulls. A new Arabian A100 class yacht she forms part of the Oman Sail project and is here to trace the inaugural route of a proposed Indian Ocean 5 Capes Race.

Cape Town is a designated stop-over for the race which could potentially start in 2012.
Capetonian Paul Standbridge, who was sailing manager for South Africa’s 2007 America’s Cup Team Shosholoza, and is rated among the world’s top sailors,  is the skipper and training manager aboard the mighty Majan.  His CV includes 13 Fastnet races and 5 Whitbread Round the World Races and British America’s Cup campaigns. He was bowman for the British America’s Cup campaign in 1987.
Also on the crew for this current exploratory dash to Cape Town is former Team Shosholoza sailor Michael Giles and Mohsin Al Busiadi who became the first Arab to sail non-stop around the world last year, another young Omani trainee sailors and photo-journalist Mark Covell.
 
Conceived by OC Events and campaigned by Oman Sail, the Indian Ocean 5 Capes Race will be the first ever yacht race to link the Middle East, Africa, Australia and Asia and the first ever race of its kind in the Indian Ocean.
It will feature “city start lines” in Muscat, Cape Town, Freemantle (Australia) and Singapore and five  “Cape” finish lines - Cape Ras Al Hadd off Oman, Cape Agulhas, the most southerly point of Africa, Cape Leeuwin on South West Australia, Cape Piai, the southernmost point of Mainland Asia, just west of Singapore and Cape Comorin on the southern tip of India.
The Majan left Muscat, Oman, last month on 6 February and stopped briefly in the Maldives while en route to Cape Town. She crossed the proposed new race finish line at Cape Agulhas at 16:02 GMT (18.02 South African time yesterday Monday 1 March).
She departs Cape Town for Freemantle next week (9 March).
 

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SOURCE " the Sailing Office at RCYC "