Voortrekker 2 a design by Angelo Lavranos

Voortrekker 2 had a great success at what she was built for,ocean racing,the SA Navy asked Angelo Lavranos to design the replacement for an aging Voortrekker,Angelo worked his magic and Voortrekker 2 was the result,I assume the naval dock yard in Simonstown built her? The boat was entered in a second double handed race around Britain,Rob Sharp and John Martin were the only crew,first they had to sail her all the way to England for the start line,thats 7000 miles? they then went on to win the race.

John Martin did a lot of single handed racing in this boat,Angelo did a re design on the boat later on,as newer boats of a similar size just became more powerfull,I remember Angelo telling me on re launce, she was a totaly new boat performance wise as they made the keel deeper,rudder too,plus added the scoop.With John Martin as skipper the revamped boat took on the world as Tuna Marine,its new sponsers,John entered the BOC Around The World Yacht Race for single handers.

Mail from Angelo,

Hello Roy,

I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of Bertie and VII together. Bertie was involved through the construction, launching, the first Cape Uraguay Race she did and the first Round Britain. However see Cape Times photo (attached) of Bertie, Roy Kingon and myself looking at a model of VII. This is published in the Book "Reed in the Wind". SA Yachting published it. I have just scanned it out the book so it is poor quality.

The other pictures of VII are both with and without the Scoop stern.

Regards,
Angelo.