OSTAR – Competitors

Markus Moser – Lifgun

Markus. I was born in 1966 and grew up in landlocked Switzerland. I live in Zurich and work as an architect. My father owned a boatyard: thus I spent my weekends sailing on Lake Zurich rather than hiking in the Swiss Alps.

What followed was a classic sailing career: at the age of five Optimist, at 12 Europe Dinghy, and at 16 Finn Dinghy.

Sailing has always been an expensive sport. When I was 14 I worked as a sailing teacher and accompanied sailing trips as a deck hand. I spent my summer holidays in Danish coastal waters, regularly taking part in races.

Boats at that time were larger (Matcher 31 and similar), with a Luffe 4004 finally being ordered and built in 2008. There then followed four years’ intensive sailing in Baltic waters. In 2011 the decision was taken to move over to a Luffe 45 which was then delivered the following year.  What a different world that introduced: many ever longer sailing trips would follow!

Oslo – Inverness – Oban – Stromness – Copenhagen – Gulf of Bothnia – Stavanger etc.

In 2017 and 2018 solo sail around Africa: Valencia – Cape Verde – Cape Town – Richards Bay – Suez – Didim (Turkey).

Lifgun. Lifgun is a Pegasus 50 designed by Slovenian Marko Pas and built at Pegasus Shipyard in Slovenia. She is hull number 3 and finished in late spring 2021. She is built out of Carbon (Hull and Deck). Carbonfibre mast, Aloy boom. 9/10 rigg with 2 spreaders, deck stepped mast. She is now going through her first sailings and will be ready and prepared until the start of the Ostar 2022. By the way – Lifgun has nothing to do with guns – it comes from Iceland and the meaning is (re)activate a hidden place….(Endurlífgun).

Jacek Chabowski – Blue Horizon

Jacek: Born in 1970 in Gdansk, Poland. Under sail since 1982. Some racing successes – Polish Sea Sailing Champion 2015. Winner of the South Baltic Cup in 2014. Winner of the Polish Sea Sailing Cup 2014. Three times winner of the L.Teliga Solitary Regatta Award. Repeated participant of the most difficult solo regatta in the Baltic Sea – Battle of Gotland. Skipper Polled Sailing Team. Many other racing successes achieved with the Polled Sailing Team. Surrounded areas: Baltic Sea, North Sea, Bay of Biscay (4 times, including once alone), Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Adriatic, Saronic Bay.
Owner of a sailing school and yacht service – Sailing Factory (sailingfactory.pl).
Total sailing experience about 40.000 NM.
Father of Maciej and Kinga, husband of wonderful woman, Alinka.

Blue Horizon:
Type: Delphia 47 (sloop)
Year of construction: 2010
Length 47 feet, yacht of the ocean class (A).
Designed by Andrzej Skrzat, produced in the Polish yacht shipyard Delphia.
The yacht is well equipped and adapted for solo sailing, including oceanic sailing.

Neil Payter – Cariberia

Details to follow

Mihail Kopanov – Krone One

Mihail: Mihail Kopanov was born in 1965 in Bourgas, Bulgaria. A father of two daughters and a husband to a lovely woman. He started sailing in the optimist class as a child. Then he moved to different olympic and national classes, class Finn as well. At the age of 15 he started sailing keelboats. Since then he is a regular participant in various sailing races.

He participated together with Dian Zaykov in Twostar 2017 but did not finish. Their boat Furia collided an unidentifiable floating object near the Canadian coast and began taking in water. The crew was professionally rescued by the ship Thor Magna. The same year the owner of the sunk boat, Rumen Kotoff bought Krone 1, a Faurby 396, launched in 2010 and they both decided to participate with that boat in the Twostar 2020. Unfortunately, an unexpected health problem prevented Rumen from participating, and they both decided that Mihail Kopanov will take part with the same boat in the Ostar instead.

Krone One: The sailboat Krone One is a Danish production sailboat, manufactured by Faurby Yacht. The model is Faurby 396 Jesper Bank Edition, designer Niels Peter Faurby. It is CE certified as class A sailing yacht with carbon mast and boom and roll-reef genoa.

James Mansell – Escape

With a love of water sports from a young age, I became a water sports instructor, teaching white water canoeing and sailing. In between working offshore on the rigs in the North Sea and undertaking various work adventures around the world, I continued white water canoeing whilst also racing my Merlin Rocket dinghy.

Some 15 years ago having established a successful and growing business, I purchased my first yacht and with my family we have explored most of the West and South coast of the UK. During this time I met my good friend Eric Zon during a very drunken night in a bar in Qatar. Team Sea Camels was launched and we proceeded to undertake a range of races together including the Three Peaks Yacht Race. This led to us completing a range of other races over the last few years such as the Fastnet, Sydney Hobart, Caribbean 600 along with double handed races such as Round Ireland and the Azores and Back (AZAB). We also completed the last edition of the RWYC’s Round Britain and Ireland double handed yacht race, coming first overall under IRC, whilst also surviving being pitchpoled in the North Sea in some 60+ knots of wind.

The OSTAR has always been on my bucket list. With Eric off with his family to sail to sunnier climes in his aluminium expedition yacht for a year or two (before we undertake some Tilman type trips to the Frozen North), now seems like a good time to take a brave pill and go solo. Anyway I found my 500Nm solo qualifier remarkably enjoyable and did manage some sleep, so here goes.

I am now looking forward not only to the race, but too also completing this challenge in support of WaterAid and raising as much money as possible for them along the way.