Rolex Sydney Hobart- Close racing marks individual skirmishes

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz on 29 Dec 2014 The overnight and morning finishes have been marked by some very close racing in the Rolex Sydney Hobart race.

Yesterday afternoon, Wild Oats XI (Oatley family) prevailed over the US supermaxi Comanche (Jim and Kristy Clark). Fifteen yachts have now finished.

The battle for third place was won by Ragamuffin (Syd Fischer), after the canting keel supermaxi dropped back significantly yesterday afternoon, and then powered through in the fresh northerly that prevailed late yesterday afternoon and evening. The hard driving Fischer was sailing in his 49th Sydney Hobart, and applied every minute of that experience to stage the comeback.

The Sydney based supermaxi appeared to have handed her US competitor, RIO100 (Manouch Moshayedi), third place. But in the end the power of the canting keeled Ragamuffin proved too powerful and she finished 10 minutes ahead of the US supermaxi. Both boats were on their first serious offshore race since undergoing major retrofits, emerging as virtually new boats at substantially reduced cost over a new build.

The Bakewell-White designed RIO100 has been optimised to win the Barn Door trophy of the 2015 Transpac Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Rule for the prestigious trophy state that only manually powered boats are eligible, and that prevents the use of canting keels and powered winches which are driven by engine power while the boat is sailing.

RIO100 was making good gains in the downhill running for which she has been optimised but when the righting power is required she will struggle against the other supermaxis and other canting keelboats close to her including the Volvo 70 Black Jack( ex Telefonica).

Ragamuffin finished at 0226hrs with RIO100 11 minutes astern, with Black Jack a further two minutes behind the US supermaxi.

This Rolex Sydney Hobart would appear to be a small boat race for overall honours once ratings are applied.

The big boats which have finished are expected to to right out of contention, provided the smaller boats can get home ahead of the strong head winds which are forecast. The front end of the fleet sailed to Tasman Island in fresh to strong northerly winds with steep seas created by a wind against current situation. Forecasters predicted swells in excess of 2 metres and with 1.5 metres of wind waves. Peak waves can be double those heights.

The race for Division 0 honours was a close fought affair with Cookson 50 Pretty Fly III (Colin Woods) looking to have the the edge over last year's overall and Division winner Victoire (Darryl Hodgkinson). But in the last two miles the slightly lower rating Victoire was able to edge through as the two match raced up the Derwent.

At the finish Victoire crossed just 87 seconds ahead of her sistership, and due to a slightly lower rating finished 14 minutes and 56 seconds ahead after ratings were applied to produce a corrected time. Wild Oats XI, the first to finish, is currently fifth on corrected time in the same division.

Pretty Fly III is believed to have lodged a redress claim over an incident last night, with Patrice, in which Pretty Fly II lost a spinnaker halyard trying to avoid the Ker 46 after she lost steerage.

One of the international entries Caro (Cayman Islands) has placed third in Division 0 with Ichi Ban (Matt Allen) listed as fourth.