REO Sportsboats principal, Andrew York has been racing sportsboats for 5 years. Andrew has had great success racing his VX One, winning three national and three state championships. While racing, Andrew observed that there could be drastic improvements to the design of sports boats. Andrew saw that many boats had great individual features, but no boat encompassed them all.
In January 2015, the REO concept came to fruition when Andrew’s REO Speedwagon took third place at the 2015 ASBA National Championships. What many don’t realise, is that it was only her second time in the water and she was still undergoing initial tuning. Achieving success in such a developmental stage was astounding. It proved that the concept of a light boat with a smaller than normal rig and good power to weight ratio had great potential.
With an upgrade of her mast in 2016, REO Speedwagon powered to 6 wins (out of nine races) at the ASBA Nationals 2017. These wins were in a variety of sailing conditions and resulted in the REO team winning the series by seven points.
About Andrew York
Andrew has an engineering background, an inquisitive mind and a knack for improving systems. In 1984, he was the first person to use vector diagrams to blow away all myths surrounding sailing in current. Many of the opinions held at the time by world and Olympic champions, as well as sailing’s technical experts were proved to be wrong in articles he wrote that were published in Australian Sailing magazine.
Around 2000, Andrew was designing and building his own Marblehead model yachts. At the time, most of the designs had lines drawn to minimise wetted surface. However, after testing different models, Andrew came to the conclusion that as the Marbleheads planed downwind, it would be more beneficial to have a boat with less rocker and a flat under body. This would result in her being able to plane earlier and sail faster. However, Andrew did not build his design for a number of years. When he finally did get the boat in the water, others had caught up to his thinking.
Andrew has many connections in the boat building industry from over 40 years competing at a national and international level. This has included two America’s Cups, 14 World Championships, Ocean Racing and being a National Olympic Class Coach.
With great interest shown in the REO Speedwagon, Andrew decided to bring the best people together to produce the best sports boat around in one design package.