Land Rover Sydney Gold Coast Race- Crosbie Lorimer Start Images

by Crosbie Lorimer on 25 Jul 2015 If the first minute of this year's Land Rover Sydney to Gold Coast Race race was anything to go by then it seemed set to be a repeat of last year's glacial procession out of Sydney Harbour.

With the breeze swinging into the SE and gradually dropping in the minutes before the start, the fleet appeared to be lying parallel to the line; the 'I' flag was duly raised to warn all crews about the one minute around the end rule.

In barely a puff of breeze as the gun fired Perpetual Loyal crept slowly towards the eastern shore under Code 0 while Celestial made good ground on the western side of the start line.

Tony Kirby's Patrice stole a march on Loyal for a few minutes, leading her to South Head before a new breeze filled in and Loyal was away and through the Heads, followed by Black Jack.

The rest of the fleet was soon in new breeze and reached through the Heads and offshore.

The talk around the docks before the race had been of good reaching conditions in westerlies up to 15 knots overnight. Breezes offshore may not be that strong, but with the leader on handicap in IRC, Goeff Boettcher's TP52 Secret Men's Business sailing at 14 knots, the crews will be enjoying good conditions in the nor'westers, even if the temperature may be cool.

Perpetual Loyal is north of Foster at 10pm and also sailing at 14 knots according to the CYCA tracker.

Crosbie and Dale Lorimer of Bow Caddy Media were out on the water for the start and these are some of Crosbie's images.