Cayman sailor, Peter Cunningham and his internationally recognised 70-foot trimaran, PowerPlay, circumnavigated Grand Cayman in record time on Good Friday, 15 April, in a sailing time of four hours and 27 minutes.
The 81-year-old Cunningham, started at Sunset House in George Town at 11am and returned there at 3:27pm, blowing out of the water the previous record set by Alan Roffey’s Resolution last year, at seven hours and 13 minutes.
But, according to Cunningham, that wasn’t the only record he was chasing when he set sail Friday morning.
He told the Cayman Compass that he was hoping to break the record of three hours, 15 minutes, set in the late 1990s by Caymanian windsurfer Kirk McCarthy. However, unfavourable conditions thwarted that attempt.
“There was not quite enough wind,” he said. “So, we would’ve liked to have at least 15 knots of wind, and we only had about 10 to 12… so we didn’t beat that record.”
Cunningham has won several of the biggest multihull races around the world, while also setting world records aboard PowerPlay at the 2021 RORC Cowes Dinard St Malo Race and the 2021 Fastnet Original Course.
He most recently made the podium at the RORC Caribbean 600 in February this year, where he finished third, and the RORC Transatlantic Race in January where he crossed 3,300 miles to earn second place in the multihull category. However, he said, sailing at home is always special.
“To sail around the island is so beautiful, the sun, the water, everything,” he said. “Whereas, you get out into the middle of the Pacific or the Atlantic, you can get some really strong breeze and weather.”
The octogenarian, however, said he isn’t finished setting records and hopes to represent the Cayman Islands again soon.
In fact, Cunningham is looking to enter PowerPlay in several United Kingdom competitions in the coming months.
“The boat will be here (Cayman) for a couple days and then they’ll sail it back to England; then, we’ve got some record-breaking things we want to try,” he said. “There is a record to go around the Isle of Wight, which is like two hours and five minutes, and we’d like to get under two hours.”
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