8 mr yacht

The Official IEMA Worldcup site

World Cup 2024

The clyde, scotland, royal northern & clyde yacht club and mudhook yacht club are proud to host the 2024 8 metre world championships.

The Clyde has been intimately involved with metre class racing since the early days and it was very fitting that the centenary of the metre rule was celebrated here in 2007. It is equally fitting that you should return to help us celebrate another major anniversary. In 2024 the RNCYC will be 200 years old and the MYC a slightly more youthful at 150 years. Three hundred and fifty years of sailing history takes some beating, and we are looking forward to a big year here on the Clyde.

The Organising Authority are the Royal Northern & Clyde Yacht Club and the Mudhook Yacht Club, in conjunction with the International 8 Metre Class Association (IEMA).

Rules applied: Rules of the International 8 Metre Class Rating Rule and the International 8 Metre World It’s early days, but it is never too soon to start planning. The World Cup will take place from 18th to 24th August 2024 and we very much hope you will enter your boat and get the date firmly into your diary.

We are planning an exciting week of racing on the Upper Clyde and an entertaining social program, based at the fabulously historic club house of the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club in Rhu.

2024 World Cup Schedule

Saturday 17 th August

Registration Measurement Tune Up / Free Sail

Sunday 18 th August

Registration Measurement Practice Races

Monday 19 th August

Racing – 2 Races

Tuesday 20 st August

Wednesday 21st August

Thursday 22nd August

Reserve Day

Friday 23th August

Saturday 24th August

Racing – 1 or 2 Races

Social Programme

The organising committee are working tirelessly to put on shore side entertainment to highlight the best of Scottish food, music and hospitality.

Full details can be found here.

Accommodation

To help your early planning we have contacted many local hotels and reserved rooms. Full details are provided on the

Accommodation page .

All yachts will be moored at Boatfolk Rhu Marina with launch / recover and storage facilities being provided by local Boats Yards and Marinas. Full details are provided on the Logistics page. For further information, assistance and to register your plans,

British Eight Metre Cup

We have arranged a series of sailing regattas for our 8mR Fleet prior to the 8mR Worlds, and this will be for the British 8mR Cup, a fantastic trophy. This is a separate prize and event from the 8mR World Cup.

This allows you to bring your boats for the Scottish sailing season and keep them in the fantastic sailing waters in the Clyde and surrounding area and sail up to 4 other events in the company of other Eights.

Click here fore more information and to express interest

The clubs have hosted countless national and international Championships, all delivered to an exceptional standard. This regatta will be run by a National Race Officer, supported by experienced and dedicated personnel.

A varied race area stretches from the ‘East Patch’ off the seaside town of Helensburgh to the ‘West Patch’ situated between Gourock, Dunoon and Hunters Quay. This area would have been used for some of the original Metre racing on the Clyde. The Royal Clyde Yacht Club’s original clubhouse was situated in Hunter’s Quay. Further down the Clyde is Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute, the original base of the Royal Northern Yacht Club, and on the mainland is Fairlie, the home of Fifes of Fairlie. Here many ‘fast and bonnie’ yachts were designed and built, including many Metre yachts.

Why Visit Scotland

While in Scotland why not visit some of the exceptional historic sites / castles / museums near to Helensburgh. Enjoy the great outdoors with a game of golf or climb a Munro or spot some of Scotland’s fantastic wildlife.

For further information click here.

Partners & Supporters

© 2022 – 2024 IEMA | All Rights Reserved | International Eight Metre Association | Website by Insinger & Co.

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US couple whose catamaran was hijacked were likely thrown overboard and died, Grenada police say

Police in Grenada said the U.S. elderly couple Ralph Hendry and Kathy Brandel, whose catamaran was hijacked a week earlier, were likely dead. (AP Video: Kenton X. Chance)

Relatives stand nearby as investigators from Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines stand aboard the yacht “Simplicity,” which they say was hijacked by three escaped prisoners with two people on board, now anchored at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Coast Guard Calliaqua Base, in Calliaqua, St. Vincent, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. Authorities in the eastern Caribbean said they were trying to locate two people believed to be U.S. citizens who were aboard the yacht that was hijacked by the three escaped prisoners from Grenada.(AP Photo/Kenton X. Chance)

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The yacht “Simplicity”, that officials say was hijacked by three escaped prisoners with two people aboard, is docked at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Coastguard Service Calliaqua Base, in Calliaqua, St. Vincent, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. Authorities in the eastern Caribbean said they were trying to locate two people believed to be U.S. citizens who were aboard the yacht that was hijacked by the three escaped prisoners from Grenada. (AP Photo/Kenton X. Chance)

Investigators from Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines stand aboard the yacht “Simplicity”, that they say was hijacked by 3 escaped prisoners with two people aboard, now anchored at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Coastguard Service Calliaqua Base, in Calliaqua, St. Vincent, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. Authorities in the eastern Caribbean said they were trying to locate two people believed to be U.S. citizens who were aboard the yacht that was hijacked by the three escaped prisoners from Grenada. (AP Photo/Kenton X. Chance)

Read the latest: Here’s what to know about a US couple missing in the Caribbean

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A U.S. couple whose catamaran was hijacked last week in the Caribbean by three escaped prisoners were presumed dead and likely had been thrown into the ocean, police said Monday.

The accounts by police in Grenada and in St. Vincent and the Grenadines were a blow to those who were independently helping search for Ralph Hendry and Kathy Brandel and had hoped they were alive.

Don McKenzie, commissioner of the Royal Grenada Police Force, said at a news conference that the three prisoners escaped on Feb. 18 from the South Saint George Police Station. They hijacked the catamaran Simplicity on the following day and then headed to St. Vincent, where they were arrested last Wednesday, he said.

“Information suggests that while traveling between Grenada and St. Vincent, they disposed of the occupants,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie said he had no conclusive proof that the couple was dead but cited a “low probability” they were alive.

Hours later, the main spokesman for the Royal St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force posted a video saying that while no bodies have been found, the couple is presumed dead based on the investigation so far.

The suspects were being investigated for several criminal acts, including “bodily harm to the couple,” spokesman Junior Simmons said in the brief recorded statement. There were signs of violence on the couple’s boat found abandoned in St. Vincent, he said.

“Several items were strewn on the deck and in the cabin, and a red substance that resembles blood was seen on board,” he said.

The nonprofit Salty Dawg Sailing Association has said that Hendry and Brandel were “veteran cruisers” and longtime members of the association, calling them “warm-hearted and capable.”

It said the couple had sailed the yacht in last year’s Caribbean Rally from Hampton, Virginia, to Antigua, and were spending the winter cruising in the eastern Caribbean.

A son of Hendry and a son of Brandel did not immediately return messages for comment.

A GoFundMe page created to raise money for the couple’s family noted that Brandel had recently become a first-time grandmother, and that the sailing community was “shattered” by what happened.

“Kathy and Ralph, experienced adventurers, spent their retirement sailing aboard Simplicity, spending summers in New England and embracing the warmth of Caribbean winters,” the page stated.

McKenzie, Grenada’s police commissioner, said a five-person team was sent to St. Vincent to help with the investigation.

After his brief announcement on Monday, McKenzie and other police officials took questions from local media, including one reporter who asked, “Who is really to be blamed for this massive failure to keep these prisoners under the control of the (Royal Grenada Police Force) which has now resulted in this tragedy?”

McKenzie said police have launched an investigation into the escape and are looking into whether it was “a system failure” or a case of a “slip up.”

“All aspects of that investigation are on the table,” he said, adding that the police holding station where the three men were being held has “sufficient safety to prevent an incident like that (from) occurring.”

When the reporter asked why the three men who were arrested remained in a holding cell instead of prison, Vannie Curwen, assistant police commissioner, said the men first had to see a magistrate who would decide whether to grant bail or order them remanded.

The escaped prisoners, Trevon Robertson, a 19-year-old unemployed man; Abita Stanislaus, a 25-year-old farmer; and Ron Mitchell, a 30-year-old sailor; were charged a couple of months ago with one count of robbery with violence. Mitchell also was charged with one count of rape, three counts of attempted rape and two counts of indecent assault and causing harm, police in Grenada said.

Simmons said the three men appeared in court in St. Vincent on Monday and pleaded guilty to four counts each of immigration-related charges, including entering the island as a “prohibited immigrant” with no passport. They are scheduled to be sentenced on those charges in March.

Russian oligarch's yacht costs U.S. taxpayers close to $1 million a month

A mega-yacht seized by U.S. authorities from a Russian oligarch is costing the government nearly $1 million a month to maintain, according to new court filings.

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking permission to sell a 348-foot yacht called Amadea, which it seized in 2022, alleging that it was owned by sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov. The government said it wants to sell the $230 million yacht due to the “excessive costs” of maintenance and crew, which it said could total $922,000 a month.

“It is excessive for taxpayers to pay nearly a million dollars per month to maintain the Amadea when these expenses could be reduced to zero through [a] sale,” according to a court filing by U.S. prosecutors on Friday.

The monthly charges for Amadea, which is now docked in San Diego, California, include $600,000 per month in running costs: $360,000 for the crew; $75,000 for fuel; and $165,000 for maintenance, waste removal, food and other expenses. They also include $144,000 in monthly pro-rata insurance costs and special charges including dry-docking fees, at $178,000, bringing the total to $922,000, according to the filings.

The battle over Amadea and the costs to the government highlight the financial and legal challenges of seizing and selling assets owned by Russian oligarchs after the country’s invasion of Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week that the European Union should use profits from more than $200 billion of frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort.

Her comments echoed government calls in the spring of 2022 to freeze the yachts, private jets and mansions of Russian billionaires in hopes of putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and raising money for the war effort.

Yet, nearly two years later, the legal process for proving ownership of the Russian assets and selling them has proven to be far more time-consuming and costly. In London, Russian billionaire Eugene Shvidler has waged a court battle over his private jets that were impounded, and Sergei Naumenko has been appealing the detention of his superyacht Phi.

The battle over Amadea began in April 2022, when it was seized in Fiji at the request of the U.S. government, according to the court filings.

Though the U.S. alleges that the yacht is owned by Kerimov, who made his fortune in mining, attorneys for Eduard Khudainatov, an ex-Rosneft CEO who has not been sanctioned, say he owns the yacht, and have sought to take back possession of the vessel.

In court filings, Khudainatov’s attorneys have objected to the U.S. government’s efforts to sell the yacht, saying a rushed sale could lead to a distressed sale price and that the maintenance costs are minor relative to the potential sale value.

Khudainatov’s attorneys refuse to pay the ongoing maintenance costs as long as the government pursues a sale and forfeiture. However, they say their client will reimburse the U.S. government for the more than $20 million already spent to maintain the yacht if it’s returned to its proper owner.

In court papers, the government says Kerimov disguised his ownership of Amadea through a series of shell companies and other owners. They say emails between crew members show Kerimov “was the beneficial owner of the yacht, irrespective of the titleholder of the vessel.”

The emails show that Kerimov and his family ordered several interior improvements of the yacht, including a new pizza oven and spa, and that between 2021 and 2022, when the boat was seized, “there were no guest trips on the Amadea that did not include either Kerimov or his family members,” according to the court filings.

The government also says Kerimov has been trying to sell Amadea for years, so a sale would be in keeping with his intent.

“This is not a situation in which a court would be ordering sale of a precious heirloom that a claimant desperately wishes to keep for sentimental reasons,” the government said in filings.

Even if Amadea were sold quickly, the proceeds wouldn’t automatically go to the government. Under law, the money would be held while Khudainatov and the government continue their battle in court over the ownership and forfeiture.

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Trump Confuses Biden With Obama, Again—Here Are 8 Other Recent Times

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Former President Donald Trump appeared to confuse former President Barack Obama with President Joe Biden during a rally Saturday night, the latest in a series of gaffes from Trump as the age and mental well-being of both top presidential candidates remains a concern for voters.

During a campaign rally Saturday night, Trump appeared to mix-up Obama with Biden, again.

The gaffe came when Trump was discussing Vladimir Putin and said the Russian president “has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word.”

Video of the event shows the crowd going silent after Trump’s reference to Obama, before Trump then names Biden, and calls him “a fool.”

In at least seven other instances, Trump has seemed to confuse Obama with Biden.

Last week, when referencing Putin at the Conservative Political Action Conference Trump made another Putin-related gaffe, saying he agreed with the Russian President that he’d rather see Biden as president.

Over the course of just several months last fall, Trump seemed to confuse Biden with Obama seven different times . In a November speech, recounting a speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, during an Oct. 1 rally in Iowa, twice on Oct. 11 during a Fox News Radio interview, and then three more times on Sept. 15, during a speech to faith leaders in Washington. Trump’s near-obsession with Obama tracks back many years, long before he ran for president, when he was spreading false information about Obama’s birth country.

Key Background

Saturday’s mistake is not the first from the 77-year-old former president. Last week, he appeared to refer to his wife Melania Trump as “Mercedes” during his CPAC remarks. The week before that he told Michigan voters to vote on the “very important date” of November 27, though the state’s primary election was on February 27. Trump has tried to defend himself by saying he “sarcastically” interchanges Obama and Biden “as an indication that others may actually be having a very big influence in running our Country.” Biden, 81, has had a run of bad public-speaking mishaps amid increased scrutiny. The Justice Department’s report, released last month by Special Counsel Robert Hur, found Biden “willfully” retained classified materials while a private citizen, but chose not to bring criminal charges, saying as Biden can appear as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” Then, in defending himself the day of the report, Biden made yet another mistake, erroneously calling Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi the “president of Mexico.”

42%. That's the percentage of people who say they at least somewhat agree Trump is too old to be an effective president, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll out Sunday. Some 73% said the same about Biden.

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Bowlus Rivet Promises Yacht-Like Features In An Off-Road Trailer For $148,500*

And that price is only after tax incentives, but this trailer is still the cheapest in the family by some margin

by Stephen Rivers

A new luxury recreational trailer is ready for glamping. Its name is Rivet and it comes from a company called Bowlus that traces its heritage to the 1930s. Priced deep into six digits it offers a bevy of high-end features and some interesting off-road and remote-control capability.  

The original Bowlus brand debuted in 1934 as the brainchild of the same visionary man who designed the world-famous Spirit of St.Louis airplane . It ceased operation in 1936 but in 2014, a wealthy couple from Canada bought the trademarks and ultimately, a new line of Bowlus trailers arrived. Today, it’s branching out further from its current two-model lineup to a third, the Rivet. 

“The Rivet is Bowlus’ most rugged travel trailer, a total departure from its current product line,” the brand says. In reality, the Rivet looks largely identical to its sibling models the Voterra and the Terra Firma. It has an 8 kWh battery like the Terra Firma and a layout that will be very familiar to current Bowlus owners.

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The big differences seem to be in a few specific areas. Firstly, the Rivet gets a three-inch lift kit and all-terrain tires so that it can go off-road more easily. Secondly, the Rivet also loses some of the storage space found in the other models. Finally, the Rivet is available with up to 660 Watts of solar power which is more than in either of its sister trailers.

It measures 25’3″ whereas the other two trailers measure 27’2”, and it has a GVWR of 3,500 pounds instead of 4,000 for the others in the family. Notably, the Rivet is the only one of the three to feature Bowlus’ new AeroMove technology, which allows the trailer to move, turn, and even parallel park on its own via remote control.

Bowlus says that it’ll even climb “steep slopes” and do 360-degree tank turns . Of course, it’s an additional $10,000 option on top of the $148,500 base price. Interestingly, Bowlus has gone with a tried and true Tesla tactic of releasing the price “after tax credit” instead of the plain old base price itself. 

Only after some digging, it’s clear that it actually costs $165,000 before options. Nevertheless, the Rivet appears to be a screaming deal compared to the Terra Firma ($285,000 before options) and the Volterra ($310,000 before options). 

Who doesn’t correlate camping in far-flung places with high-end luxury? The Bowlus Rivet is the kind of recreational trailer that even Tom Haverford would approve of. 

As this moment ( February 2022) we have uploaded basic (or minimum) info on most 8 mR yachts still in existence, but we would like to have more detailed information on all yachts and some history and pictures of all eights. So this page is still a lot of work, please send us an e-mail with boat data and pictures if you want to help us out make this registry even more complete

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