Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race 2024

News
2018
'Comanche the one to beat'

'Comanche the one to beat'

NEWS
26 Jul, 2018 07:29:00 PM

'Comanche the one to beat'

Bradshaw Kellett, CYCA Director and navigator onboard InfoTrack, gives his final thoughts

Anticipation is building for this year’s Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, the first race in the Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore, with Thursday's Race Briefing in front of a packed house. All competitors were represented from the record-breaking four 100-footers, all the way through to our smallest competitor, the Army Sailing Club’s Gun Runner.

We caught up with Bradshaw Kellett, CYCA Director and navigator onboard supermaxi InfoTrack, to get his last-minute thoughts on the coastal classic.

CYCA: So Bradshaw, the big one, who’s the boat to beat?

Bradshaw: Always Comanche.

Wild Oats and Black Jack as well, they’re our three biggest competitors. We’re really looking forward to the Race, upwind suits us and we’re looking at getting a first… or second – always a positive outlook on life!

CYCA: You mentioned you’re looking forward to the Race, how are you feeling coming into it?

Bradshaw: Well the weather’s been changing all week, it’s been a hard time for the navigator to get our minds around a game plan. There’s a lot of background noise from the crew, “what’s going to happen here, what’s going to happen there?”

Normally we’re pretty well confident that we’ll get this amount of pressure at this angle, but all the models are lining up at various angles until further up the course.

We’re pretty happy that we’re going to have light winds at the start to get us heading north. We’re Looking at a late afternoon Sunday finish.

CYCA: So a nice quick one! And lastly Bradshaw, what’s your greatest motivator for this Race?

Bradshaw: Start prepping the boys for the Rolex Sydney Hobart race.

We haven’t actually entered for the Blue Water Pointscore series as we weren’t sure what our program was due to re-building, but we’ve decided to lay low on that and concentrate on ocean racing for the rest of the year.

This is the first step towards the Hobart Race, and there will be another three steps of ocean races after that. (All Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore races)

We’re turning around after the finish line and bringing the boat home. We’ll probably pull the boat apart - again, getting ready for September and October and get the boat back out there again.