Skandia red hot for Hobart

by Rob Kothe on 30 Nov 2003 Victorian Grant Wharington sailed his 98 footer Skandia to a perfect four line honours wins, in the 2003 JPMorgan Regatta off Sydney Heads this weekend.

Skandia, the biggest ocean racer every built in Australia, showed why she is currently the red hot line honours favourite for the 2003 Rolex Sydney to Hobart race.

Launched only six weeks ago after completion by Hart Marine of Melbourne, the canting keel super maxi had not faced the starter prior to this event.

Wharington and his seventeen crew sailed for sixty five hours from Melbourne and managed to snatch just five hours sleep before they began their first season, on Saturday morning, off Sydney Heads.

With a conservative start, she blasted away from the fleet in 10-12 knot winds. Although the former Sydney to Hobart line honours winner Brindabella sailed the first beat on the favoured right side of the course, she still turned about 8 boat lengths behind the powerful Skandia. At 98 foot, they are big boat lengths and Skandia sailed away from her rivals to beat Brindabella
and last year's second placed Grundig, by 5 minutes.

In the second race, the breeze had increased to 15 knots and the narrow hulled super maxi rounded the first mark 90 seconds ahead of Sean Langman’s
Grundig, with George Snow’s Brindabella, third.

Wharington steered his new charge to a seven minute win ahead of Grundig in second, with
Brindabella another two minutes back, in third.

After the second race, a very pleased Grant Wharington commented, ‘I really love this new boat. It’s an easy boat to sail because the main and primary winches are all electric powered. The entire load handing system really works well and we can concentrate on sailing the boat. However we are still figuring out our crew work and we had spinnaker handling problems in both races and that cost us time.’

Day Two saw a sharper display from the blue-hulled giant. She started midline with speed in, and cleared out to beat the same two boats by more than 9 minutes.

In the final race the wind was again at 15’s with a shortish sea and lots of tide, and Skandia cleared away to another victory, ahead of Grundig (7 minutes) and Brindabella (9 minutes).

With four wins in a row and a second overall in IRC, a relaxed Wharington was much happier with his crew work.

‘We were much more settled today. We had no issues at all on the boat. We have our headsails sorted now and we will have our new spinnakers next week.
We’ve certainly not had the power we’ve needed with our old kites.

We are IRC rated with another 100 sq. metres up, so we are looking forward to having our big kites for the Canon Big Boat series and the Rolex Trophy
series in two weeks.’

For more detailed stories information see www.sail-world.com/jpmorgan2003