SHOCKWAVE AND ADDICTION SHARE LEAD IN TELSTRA CUP

by Ian Grant on 13 Dec 2000 Neville Crichton's super maxi Shockwave and the Stewart Lewis skippered Mumm 30 share the Telstra Cup IRC class championship lead after two races on the Tasman Sea off Sydney today.

As expected the Telstra Sydney Hobart race line honours favourite Shockwave steered by owner Crichton again produced unmatched boatspeed to easily take line honours in both races.

However it was the small Mumm 30 Addiction cleverly crewed by a team of Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron sailors which prevented the super sloop from taking a strangle hold on the championship.

Addiction steered by skipper Lewis with the former Australian Sabot champion Robbie Lea calling the tactics was consistent on all sailing angles in the light variable wind range with the crew sailing each variation on merit.

They totally understood the importance of sailing for speed even when the breeze dropped below 5 knots and this contributed to Addiction saving her low 1.090 rating to score a 1 minute 26 second win in the opening race of the series over Shockwave (1.530) and Cruising Yacht Club of Australia helmsman Rod Skellett in Wild Bull rating 1.090.

The second race sailed over a shorter course resulted in a rare line and corrected time win for Shockwave when she completed the course in a little over 47 minutes to clinch a runaway 5 minute 21 second victory over Addiction and Stephen Ainsworth in the Swan 48 Loki .

After today's two races Addiction and Shockwave jointly share the lead on 110 points followed by Wild Bull 105, followed by Sanctuary Two (Peter Taylor), Heaven Can Wait (Warren Johns) and Loki (Stephen Ainsworth) 102, Koomooloo (Michael Freebairn) 98pts, and Xena (Sean Langman) 97pts.