Challenge Business has announced a new round-the-world yacht race, the Corinthian Challenge, which is provisionally due to commence in September 2006. The Race is designed to bridge the gap between the professional sailor and the club racer, enabling the sport of round-the-world yacht racing to be accessible to all.

Following the ethos of the original Whitbread, the Corinthian Challenge will open the doors of global racing to private yacht owners and ambitious club racers alike, plus their selected crew – a minimum of five per boat.

The Race was inspired by Sir Chay Blyth’s participation in the inaugural Whitbread in 1973. Chay Blyth, as skipper, took line honours in the event, with a crew of Paratroopers on ‘Great Britain II’. The Race will follow the classic Global route leaving northern Europe and picking up the northeast trade winds then south and into the southeast trades. The route will then round the three great Capes; Cape of Good Hope, Leeuin and Cape Horn while passing through the notorious Southern Ocean and back to northern Europe.

Sir Chay Blyth, executive chairman of Challenge Business comments: “We have aimed the Corinthian Challenge at those with a true Corinthian spirit who want to take part in a round-the-world yacht race where the winning yacht may not have the biggest sponsor or the owner with the deepest pocket. It has been born as a reaction to the excessive costs, extreme yacht designs and exclusivity of some ocean races, which exclude so many whose dreams of racing around-the-world have never been satisfied.”

Participants will be owners, skippers and crew with the enthusiasm, determination and ability to put together a team who relish the prospect of winning a very competitive world-class race. The Race is for monohulls only and the yachts, which must be suitable for racing in the most demanding conditions, will be raced under the RORC Special Regulations for Cat 0 racing plus additional requirements deemed appropriate by the race organisers.

Yachts will need to be of a certain size – either side of 18.5 metres – to race in the Corinthian Challenge to help ensure close racing and short stopovers. World Cruising Club, part of Challenge Business, will be organising the event and is at the forefront of long distance ocean events, annually organising the ARC for over 200 yachts.

Further information on the new event can be obtained by visiting the World Cruising Club Web site: www.worldcruising.com/corinthian