Eilean Returns Home as the Star of the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta 2012

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OFFICINE PANERAI’S CLASSIC KETCH EILEAN RETURNS HOME AS THE STAR OF THE ANTIGUA CLASSIC YACHT REGATTA 2012

Duran Duran Joins in to Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Video for “Rio”, Shot Aboard Eilean in 1982.

Officine Panerai is proud to announce the 25th anniversary of the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta from April 19-24. The Regatta opens the Panerai Classic Yachts Challenge 2012 Season, with over 50 classic yachts expected to attend. With yachts arriving from around the world, the unrivalled scenery of Antigua will not only be host to the sailing competition, but the many stories of the masters who designed and built the yachts, their owners and skippers, and their often famous guests.

A host of notable names from the classic yacht world are set to dock at English Harbour, including the 1930 yawl Dorade, one of the masterpieces by Olin Stephens; Mariella of 1938, designed and built in the Fife shipyards; the one-hundred-year-old auric cutter Moya (1910); Tuiga (1909), the famous Fife that flies the flag of the Monaco Yacht Club around the world; the super-fast Bermudan ketch Stormvogel (1961), winner of the PCYC 2008 circuit and set of the film “Dead Calm” starring Nicole Kidman; and the impressive auric schooner Zaca a te Moana, a spirit of tradition from 1992 reaching 43 metres in length.

This year, the star of the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta is sure to be the Bermudan ketch, Eilean. Built in 1936 in the island’s Fife shipyards, Eilean spent the final decades of her long and fascinating existence in Antigua, where she fell into disrepair. After years of painstaking restoration work sponsored by Officine Panerai, Eilean will be at the center of a series of events planned to celebrate her return to Antigua. The highlight will be a multimedia exhibition dedicated to Eilean and the story of her rebirth, staged inside the historical Nelson’s Dockyard, an old port and Georgian shipyard that comprises island’s principal natural park. Also set to take part in the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta in celebration of Eilean’s return, are the members of the pop band Duran Duran, who shot the video for “Rio”, the song from their eponymous 1982 hit album, onboard Eilean exactly 30 years ago.

Eilean’s return to Antigua is also marked by the launch of a new website dedicated to the classic ketch - Home - Eilean. The new website features Eilean‘s complete history and an outline of all of her technical details and specifications, as well as a map that tracks all of her movements in real time. It also offers visitors the opportunity to read about the adventures Eilean through the eyes of her skipper, Andrew Cully, on his personal blog.

The four races of the Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta will take from April 20 to 23, with the awards ceremony scheduled for the evening of April 24.