Seasoned Racing Sailor Skippering Sterna in Cape 2 Rio.

Allspice Yachting will be racing their 1988 Nautor Swan 53 Sterna with an amateur crew in the 2023 Cape 2 Rio, departing 2 January. This will be the 50th anniversary of this race across the South Atlantic, and the second time that Allspice Yachting has entered a yacht in the race. Skippering Sterna in the Cape 2 Rio is seasoned sailor Justin Taylor. Justin has skippered racing yachts in two editions of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston's Clipper round-the-world Race before becoming the race director. The Cape 2 Rio marks his return to his love of offshore racing.

The Cape 2Rio kicks off over a year of adventure for Allspice Yachting with the first of two Atlantic crossings on the way to Europe for the Ocean Globe Race start. In addition to Justin Taylor and Allspice Yachting’s Director Gerrit Louw, Sterna’s Cape 2 Rio crew are Melissa Du Toit, Brittany Mauer (from the USA), Ben Lam (from Japan), Robbie Louw, Lushan Terlien and Roger Smith. More than half of the crew will also be sailing onboard Sterna in the 2023 Ocean Globe Race. Sterna will also be racing against fellow Ocean Globe Race entrant Translated 9 in the Cape 2 Rio.

The Ocean Globe Race is a crewed retro sail race in the spirit of the 1973 Whitbread Race, and Allspice Yachting is the only South African entrant. The 2023 Ocean Globe Race is the sister event of the 2022 Golden Globe Race, a retro solo non-stop unassisted race around the world, in which South Africans Kirsten Neuschäfer and Jeremy Bagshaw are currently taking part.