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“We are going skinny”

Home 2004 “We are going skinny”

Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2003

"If the boat’s only just north of Coffs Harbour by Tuesday, the big magnet will get us,” says Maurice Cameron.

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AAPT skipper Sean Langman last night sent a late message to his crew.

“One phone. No toothbrush. We are going skinny.”

With only six crew on board this 66-footer - a two-time line honours winner in this race - and no comforts, they are heeding the Bureau of Meteorology’s forecast for the first 36 hours of the 384 nautical mile Ingles Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race that starts at 1.00pm today from Sydney Harbour.

The forecast for this afternoon when 75 yachts will ease their way out of Sydney Harbour before making a left turn at North Head is for a nor’east sea breeze of 5-10 knots that will be replaced by an overnight land breeze.

Sunday’s forecast is similar but with a fresher sea breeze expected in the afternoon of 10-15 knots.

By Monday, the forecaster Sean Carson from the Bureau expects the dominant high-pressure system will finally move away and the “low pressure system that has been winding up in the Great Australian Bight” should bring north nor’west winds of 15-20 knots to the racetrack.

These are optimum conditions for the smaller boats to steal the thunder of the maxis for handicap honours but for Grant Wharington and three of his Skandia crew who are competing in the Etchells World Championships at Mooloolaba on Monday afternoon, the news isn’t ideal.

“There is a bit of pressure on the four guys,” said Skandia’s navigator Will Oxley this morning. “We’ve packed sedatives for them for Sunday night if it looks like it’s going to be close,” he joked.

Oxley says the forecast conditions are ideal for Skandia in its new configuration and by dropping the crew weight down to 10 on the 98-footer, they will have a distinct advantage over the same sized Konica Minolta (Stewart Thwaites) which is carrying 23 crew.

Having sailed 1,200 nautical miles from Auckland to compete in this race, Thwaites is understandably anxious about Skandia’s recent modifications and a repeat of his result in last year’s 630 nautical mile Rolex Sydney Hobart when he finished second over the line to the Victorian maxi by a margin of just 14 minutes.

For 19-year-old navigator Andrew Joyce, who also navigated the Beneteau 40.7 First National Real Estate to an overall win in last year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, tactics for his race north on the Farr 49 Sting will be all about the transition between the land breeze at night and the sea breeze by day.

“We’ll be working the shore at night time and trying to stay out of the current during the day,” Joyce says.

 

For Maurice Cameron, a veteran of 17 Sydney Gold Coast races and the skipper of Witchdoctor, one of the oldest boats in the 75-strong fleet, leaving toothbrushes behind and racing against the clock isn’t the reason he and his crew enter just about every offshore race on the Australian East Coast.

He admitted this morning that if the boat’s only just north of Coffs Harbour by Tuesday, “the big magnet will get us,” he said, referring to the bar at the Coffs Harbour Fishermen’s Club.

The race record for the Ingles Sydney Gold Coast Race of 27 hours 35 minutes 3 seconds is held by George Snow’s Brindabella and given the forecast, it looks set to remain another year.