Wild Oats finishes second at Rolex Maxi Worlds

by Bob Ross on 12 Sep 2004 Bob Oatley’s brand new Wild Oats proved fast out of the box in finishing second overall to Roy Disney’s Pyewacket at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup in Porto Cervo, Sardinia, today.

Due to shipping holdups between Sydney and Europe, Oatley’s latest Wild Oats a Reichel/Pugh 66-footer, arrived in Porto Cervo only the day before the regatta.

Wild Oats, one of the smallest boats in the fleet, finished second in the last race today, 8min 8sec on corrected time behind Pyewacket, a Reichel/Pugh maxZ86, one of the biggest boats.

The race was scenic, around small rocky islands after a two round windward-return opening, in a light sea breeze of 8-10 knots at the start that faded to four knots in some of the passages between islands.

Pyewacket led around the windward-leeward sector but was under strong pressure from Randall Pittman’s Dubois 90 Genuine Risk and Neville Crichton’s water-ballasted Reichel/Pugh 90-footer Alfa Romeo.

Alfa Romeo led briefly in one of the island passages, tacking into a band of new breeze. Then Genuine Risk unfurled her masthead Code Zero headsail to power past both.

Pyewacket passed Alfa Romeo on the next leg, a long port-tack lay with a few hitches out to sea along the coast. Genuine Risk was first to finish by 2min 33sec from Pyewacket with Alfa Romeo another 2min 05sec behind.

The first three boats overall all sported the canting keel twin foil underwater technology and clearly dominated the results of this historic clash between the new and the old.

The first conventional keeled boat, in fourth place, was the Reichel/Pugh 77 Nokia Enigma, the former Chance, now owned by Charles Dunstone of Great Britain.

Pyewacket won with six points from a scoreline of 1-1-2-2-1-1 placings. Wild Oats scored 2-2-3-1-3-2, 10 points, followed by Genuine Risk, 3-dnf-1-5-2-4, 15 and Nokia Enigma, 4-3-4-3-4-3, 17.

Alfa Romeo was sixth with 6-dnf-7-4-5-6 placings for 28 points.

Bob Oatley believes Wild Oats can go a lot faster. ‘Our boat is extremely fast off a breeze, we have proved that time and time again here,’ he said. ‘We will get it going faster upwind as we get to know the boat a bit better and then its going to be sensational.

‘It’s like the sun coming out.’




The boat is being shipped back to Sydney immediately to do either the Strathfield Pittwater-Coffs race or Rolex Sydney-Hobart.

Mister A (Aldo Pagani, Italy), a Farr 66, built by Marten Marine in Auckland and fitted with wing mast won the cruising division with four wins after an eighth in the first race when she broke a strop securing the mainsheet block to the boom.

Pagani remembers clearly her first regatta, Hahn Premium Race Week at Hamilton Island 2003, when she hit a coral ‘bombie’ and shed the lead bulb of her keel.

‘I was very upset,’ said Pagani. ‘Today, I am very happy. It is a very fast boat, Bruce Farr did a wonderful job.’

The 100ft Alexia, owned by Alberto Roemmers of Argentina, won the Wally division.