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Winds ease as fleet settles into first night at sea

Home 2006 Winds ease as fleet settles into first night at sea

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The wild 30+ knot sou'west winds that whipped up Sydney Harbour for the start of the Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, and were due to hold for the most of the first night at sea, have eased to around 17 knots however race leader Skandia is still on track to set a new record.

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The wild 30+ knot sou'west winds that whipped up Sydney Harbour for the start of the Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, and were due to hold for the most of the first night at sea, have eased to around 17 knots however race leader Skandia is still on track to set a new record.

At 8.00pm tonight local time, Grant Wharington’s Skandia was sailing off Sugar Loaf north of Port Stephens, and had covered more than 100 nautical miles of the 384 nautical mile course. This gives her an average boat speed of 15.5 knots which is more than enough to set a new record for an unconventionally ballasted boat, but with the breeze dropping much earlier than anticipated and expected to ease further tomorrow morning, a new fastest time for this 384 nautical mile stretch is still a long way off.

George Snow’s Brindabella, a conventionally ballasted boat, set the current race record of 27 hours 35 minutes 3 seconds in 1999.

At 8.30pm tonight local time, Skandia was 12 miles ahead of Steven David’s Reichel/Pugh 66 Wild Joe, the boat they have to watch out for in this downhill slide to Southport according to Skandia’s navigator Will Oxley.

On IRC handicap at the 1805 hours position report, Ray Roberts’ DK 46 Quantum Racing was continuing its winning form, leading the IRC fleet ahead of Anthony Paterson’s 30 foot rocket ship Tow Truck and Bill Wild’s Wedgetail, the best placed Queensland boat amongst the early IRC handicap standings.

Roberts has enjoyed an outstanding summer including winning the Rolex Trophy last December, followed up by a win in the Scotchman’s Hill Series at Skandia Geelong Week. With his top crew, he also took out last year’s Kings Cup in Thailand on IRC and this year’s Langkawi Cup.

In the early PHS results, Queensland boat Prime Example (David Benson) is the early leader ahead of CYCA Commodore Geoff Lavis and his Inglis 50 Wild Thing, and Michael Martin’s Frantic.

Skandia’s quest for a new record has not been without incident however with navigator Will Oxley reporting this afternoon that prior to the race start the “leg of the engine dropped down leading to the prop spinning wildly with the engine out of gear.

“Then at about 1500 hrs the lashing holding the code 0 at the top of the mast snapped and the 0 fell down on its stay. Mitch [White] went up the forestay to try to sort it out but as we were re-hoisting it, the sail pulled clear of the stay.

“Then 30 minutes later we surfed off down a big wave and whilst doing 28 knots the bit of timber holding the prop up snapped and the prop dropped back under the boat. We are now working on fashioning a new system for holding the prop up in the boat!” Oxley advised late this afternoon.

Following the retirement of Nick De Laine’s Stomp with rudder problems soon after the 1.00pm start, Andrew Buckland and Andrew Hunn’s Cape 40 Mr Kite was this afternoon forced to retire with keel problems. Both boats were contesting their first major offshore race.

Graeme Wood’s Wot’s Next retired from racing this evening with damaged spinnakers and has headed to the port of Newcastle leaving a fleet of 39 continuing on.