Don Jones, you’ve done it again

by Rob Kothe on 31 Jul 2004 As the sun set on the first night of the 2004 Sydney to Gold Coast race, Mornington yacht designer Don Jones was toasted by ten sailors on Grant Wharington’s super maxi Skandia.

‘The new bow canard Don has designed is fantastic’ Wharington reported at dusk. ‘We’ve gone from seven degrees of leeway, down to three degrees.’

The Victorian super-maxi has begun to stretch her lead over her Kiwi rival in the last few hours.

‘We are keen to maintain separation’, explained navigator Will Oxley, after this evening’s radio sked. ‘We are expecting to be favoured on the land breeze swing.’

‘This afternoon we’d expected more north in the breeze, but it was hardly left of east and that delivered us the best possible speed. It all helps us to get these Etchells sailors to their Worlds appointments. We have to average almost 9’s, breeze or no breeze and remarkably in spite of the windless start, we are on track’.

Aboard Konica Minolta, there was recognition of an ordinary Harbour start.

By sat phone crewman Gareth Cooke, ‘We had a shocking start. We were lucky we were able to get our Code Zero up first, as soon as we rounded North Head and that put us back into the race. We are watching Skandia closely and we are determined we will stick with them.’

At 2050 Skandia was five miles ahead of the New Zealanders. AAPT was surprising closely, only 1.5 miles in arrears with Brindabella next ahead of Seriously Ten and Ichi Ban.