Yacht designer Dick Carter wins the 1969 Fastnet Race and Admiral's Cup with RED ROOSTER.

Gin & tonics recommended!
The international Admiral's Cup regatta was for many years known as the unofficial world championships of offshore yacht racing. Held every other year off the south coast of England, the Admiral's Cup was contested by teams of 3 racing yachts from every participating country. The regatta attracted the world's top yacht designers, fastest yachts, and elite skippers and crews.
The Admiral's Cup consisted of four races with points awarded to boats based on placement: the Cross Channel race, Brittania Cup and New York Yacht Club Challenge Cup. The final race, and the only one to award triple points, is one of the world's most prestigious ocean races: the Fastnet, a 650 mile, four day race with a course beginning in Cowes, England, rounding Fastnet Rock off the south coast of Ireland and then finishing in Plymouth, England.
In 1969, eleven countries fielded Admiral's Cup teams. Selected for the US team was the 41' RED ROOSTER (with lifting keel), designed and skippered by Dick Carter; CARINA, a McCurdy & Rhodes design skippered by Dick Nye; and PALAWAN III, a Sparkman & Stephens design skippered by IBM CEO Tom Watson.
The strong Australian team had won the Admiral's Cup in 1967 and looked to be heading for a repeat victory in 1969 but RED ROOSTER had other plans, winning the Fastnet in a fleet of 140 yachts; scoring the most points in the Admiral's Cup regatta, and enabling the US team to win the Admiral's Cup, an achievement not repeated until 1997. It was also Dick Carter's second victory in the Fastnet, having won it in 1965 with his very first design, the revolutionary RABBIT.
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Dick Carter Yacht Designer: In the Golden Age of Offshore Racing
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