Gunboat 55 Hull #1 Found, Again

Rainmaker, the first of the hot-selling Gunboat 55 catamarans, has been found again, this time five months after she was dismasted and abandoned by her crew off the East Coast. We say "again" because Gunboat founder and owner Peter Johnstone said she’d been spotted once before about three months ago, but when they tried to find her, they couldn’t.

"I really want to get that boat back," Johnstone told Latitude two months ago in the Caribbean. Not only do we think he wants the cat back, we think he’s burning to fix her up and race her again. One needs to remember that just a couple of hours after the first G4 flipped in the Voiles de St. Barth, she was righted and back on her hook, flags flying, looking as though nothing had happened. So if that’s Johnstone’s dream, we hope he pulls it off. But there are some obstacles. She’s still owned by her owner, who has been negotiating with the insurance company, and she’s open to salvage.

It’s also worth noting that Rainmaker was found at latitude 35° 36.282 N, not that far from where she was abandoned. How come she didn’t ride the Gulf Stream to Ireland? She was also at longitude 062° 17.187 W.

Five months on her own in the North Atlantic winter and still floating. That’s pretty impressive.

This just in. In response to our bet that Peter Johnstone would like to get the boat back and race her, he wrote, "Rainmaker is an exceptional boat. She deserves to rise like Phoenix and go kick some ass with the right people that will love her!"