Skip to main content
Time to race start
00 days
:
00 hours
:
00 mins
:
00 secs

Lahana retires, Wild Oats X leading

Home 2009 Lahana retires, Wild Oats X leading

Article Image

Peter Millard and John Honan’s Lahana, a potential line honours winner, has retired from the Audi Sydney Gold Coast Yacht race after sustaining deck damage. Whilst the crack is not major, the owners decided to return to port to further assess the damage.

news
—

0900hrs 26 July 2009

Peter Millard and John Honan’s Lahana, a potential line honours winner, has retired from the Audi Sydney Gold Coast Yacht race after sustaining deck damage.  Whilst the crack is not major, the owners decided to return to port to further assess the damage.

Wild Oats X is currently in the lead, and doing 8.6 knots, with Stephen Ainsworth’s Loki second doing 10.3 knots and Andrew Short’s Pricewaterhouse Coopers third, doing 9.2 knots.

Tom Addis, tactician on Wild Oats X reports that yesterday and last night went to plan.  "We timed the left hand shift pretty well and managed to extend on the closest boats behind us. We have tried to hold an inshore position since getting around Seal Rocks.”

“It’s all good so far but we will be keeping an eye on the boats offshore in case they start gaining but we have a few cards up our sleeves due to our positioning.  Life is fine, pretty chilly with plenty of water over the deck and pretty routine upwind sailing.  Things should get more interesting tonight,” concluded Tom

Based on current speeds, the first boats should cross the finish line off Southport’s Main Beach on Monday afternoon and evening, well outside record time.  The fleet is spread out over the coastline between Newcastle and Port Macquarie.

In the early stages of the race, the provisional IRC Overall winner is currently Robert Date's Scarlett Runner.

Other retirements this morning were Michael Cranitch’s Broomstick with gear failure and Andrew Cochrane’s Pendragon who retired with rigging damage.

Upon arriving back at the CYCA, owner Michael Cranitch said multiple gear failures ended Broomstick’s race. “We had unexplained water in the water ballast tanks, a diesel leak and then we lost the instrument lights.”

"Up until then we had been having a fabulous time.  Our modelling took us offshore and as night fell we were getting 8.5 knots of NNE breeze, but the current slowed us down by 2-3 knots, so our eventual boat speed was averaging 5.5knots.  When we came back inside the rhumbline, we had calmer seas and good pressure.  But with all the gear failures we had to retire from the race which was disappointing for the crew,” concluded Michael
 
Keen enthusiasts can track the fleet as they sail up the coast as each yacht is fitted with the CYCA’s unique yacht tracking device which sends regular updates to the race website – http://goldcoast.cyca.com.au.  Details of all yachts participating in the event can be found under ‘The Yachts’ tab.  Line honours positions and handicap results will be updated regularly until the last boat cross the finish line.