About
History of Prospect of Whitby III
Prospect of Whitby (design no. 2057) was originally commissioned by the well-known English sailor Arthur Slater. Arthur Slater ordered in total 6 designs from Sparkman & Stephens, typically a new construction every two years with the target to compete in Admiral’s Cup races, which were organised every second year. Five of these boats were called “Prospect of Whitby”
Mr. Slater was targeting to be a member of the British Admiral’s Cup team of 1971. In order to be successful, he commissioned his 4th design from S&S office, which became the third Prospect of Whitby. In the qualification races Mr. Slater’s team was performing consistently well, which led Prospect of Whitby to be selected to the UK team as the “big boat”. The British team was captained by Sir Edward “Ted” Heath, and his also newly commissioned S&S design “Morning Cloud II”. The third boat in the team was Bob Watson’s “Cervantes IV”, another successful racer coming from the design office of S&S. The English team was victorious and took the cup home, with Prospect of Whitby being the points leader in the team. As Ted Heat was appointed UK prime minister in 1970, the entire UK team got enormous publicity in the English press during the entire event. Since Admiral’s Cup, Mr. Slater took Prospect of Whitby to Australia to compete in the “Southern Cross Cup”, including Sydney-Hobart race. After more leisurely season of 1972, he sold the boat in order to focus on creating his next Prospect of Whitby design for 1973 Admiral’s Cup season.
Prospect of Whitby III was sold to an English construction business entrepreneur and enthusiastic racing sailor Sir Maurice Laing, who campaigned her as “Loujane” successfully until 1989. She competed for instance in the 1979 Fastnet Race. The yacht was granted to “Adventures of Offshore” Sea Scouts society, who renamed her “Sales”. The boat sailed under the sea scout’s flag until 1998 when she was told to Mr. Tony Cox. Mr. Cox. returned the original name “Prospect of Whitby” and also returned the boat to the race courses. She received a new high, racing sails and reached its peak performance in 2001, when Prospect of Whitby won its class in RORC IRC2 ranking series. The boat was briefly under ownership of Mr. James Nimmo, until she was sold in 2005 to Hanno Narjus and Hanna Euro.
During her Finnish ownership of Mr. Narjus and Mrs. Euro, Prospect of Whitby has been totally rebuilt, including new deck, new accommodation and completely renewed equipment. The rebuilding work has been done by Mr. Lasse Ristikankare and her owners, with advice from Mr. Lars Ström on design and construction details. Prospect of Whitby III has continued her racing life during current ownership and has won its class in Finnish & Estonian Offshore Week as well as Gotland Runt.
Prospect of Whitby’s hull is of aluminium construction, built by Royal Huisman of The Netherlands. The superstructure and accommodation were built by Berthons in England of plywood.
Prospect of Whitby III 