Skandia in a post card

by Rob Kothe on 23 Jan 2004 The perfect record continues for Grant Wharington’s supermaxi Skandia as she recorded line wins 18 and 19 on Port Phillip today in the 2004 Skandia Geelong Week.

Since her October launch the super maxi has remained unchallenged and its clear she will record her 20th win in the series tomorrow.

Today a young British sailor, 26 year old Samantha Davies, who is familiar with big boats, gave another perspective on these ocean giants. She’s raced a 110 footer, the fastest boat in the world, in fact, the catamaran Maiden, the former Club Med and Sam was onboard when Maiden sailed an amazing 694 miles in 24 hours.

Her impressions of Skandia the maxi ‘A really cool boat, really well laid out with great deck gear. She’s really easy to sail, mind you the crew was a big part of that, they are all class and made it simple.

The canting keel is great, it reminded me a lot of my little Mini-transat boat, called Aberdeen Asset Management ,which 21 footer, with a similar canting keel arrangement. With both boats, you can feel these boats really powering up.

The powered winches on Skandia mean that boat handling is easy, and everyone can just concentrate on sailing. I drove a little today, the helm is very responsive, adjustable for angle of heel.

Actually it was fun to watch it from the opposite perspective, yesterday I sailed Skandia Contribution, the Tasmanian campaign Quetzacoatl, a 40 footer we saw Skandia sail past us at the start and she looked awesome.

Today, aboard the 98 footer Skandia, I could see how challenging it was for the hemsman to pick a spot on the startline. ‘Its tough to get a good start because of the speed differentials, the helmsman has to predict what is going to happen in 20 seconds time.’

It was just great to be out here with Skandia, it was like sailing on a post card today, perfect breeze, perfect wind, perfect temperature’

The full results from today’s races will be available now www.skandiageelongweek.com