Rock hopping in the Heemskirk Melbourne to Hobart
by ORCV on 29 Dec 2007
Varta Spirit of Downunder Sail-World.com /AUS
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Weather overnight saw a lot of boats ‘parked' on the north coast, those that rock hopped took the advantage. This morning seeing Varta Spirit of Downunder, Corelink Creative In tension, and Ocean Skins take a slight lead from dekadence and eXtasea.
As the fleet reached the north east corner and the Banks Strait area of Tasmania they were greeted with north north westerlies at 20 knots. Cracking out the spinnakers, the leading boats have been match racing with approximately 200 nms of distance ahead of them to the finish line.
Tony Fowler's downwind flyer Ocean Skins, an Inglis 47, stayed to an inside course and with approximately 7nms to Eddystone point lead the fleet. With eXtasea and dekadence bearing down on them and the breeze dropping back to 8 knots it is anyone's race.
Matt Hannaford from dekadence commented on last night's weather, ‘incredibly frustrating. We were parked up most of the night with no breeze. Some of the smaller boats hugged the coast and got past us during the night but the current was holding us out and we couldn't get in.'
The leading bunch which additionally includes Alex - team MacAdie and Varta Spirit of Downunder are within sight of each other playing a cat and mouse game of tactics as they prepare for the run down the east coast.
The smaller boats in the fleet are sitting on the North coast with little or no breeze. They may find that when they do reach the corner the southerly change will have kicked in, giving great advantage to the larger boats in the fleet as they revel in the northerlies.
Still ahead of them, is that almost separate race of the dash up the Derwent, where fluky breezes and dead spots have determined the winner more than once before in this race.
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