Seriously Ten line honours Southport- Mackay

by George Brown on 7 Aug 2005 The line honours winner for the 2005 Southport to Mackay Blue Water Yacht Race is Seriously Ten.

Skipper Shaun James steered his Volvo 60 across the line at the entrance to the Mackay Boat Harbour at 9.46am this morning. His elapsed time was 1 day, 22 hours, 46min 24sec.

Wedgetail (Bill Wild), Club Marine ASM (Andrew Short) and Living Doll (Michael Hiatt) arrived in Mackay in a bunch between midday and 1.00pm.

It was a wild and woolly ride for the lead yachts in south to sou’east winds which gusted up to 40 knots.

The crews of Seriously Ten, Club Marine ASM and Living Doll battled with broken battens, tangled spinnakers and other gear breakages. Seriously Ten snapped a spinnaker pole and Shaun James was washed off the steering wheel twice when the boat was swamped by waves. Living Doll and Club Marine ASM were forced to stop when spinnakers wrapped around their keels.

‘At one stage off Morton Island we were going backwards before we managed to untangle the kite,’ said Hiatt. His new Cookson 50 was put to the test in the conditions after only its second race. ‘Overall, I am very pleased with the performance,’ he said.

Andrew Short had to send a crew member overboard to free the spinnaker from the keel just prior to the start. ‘I thought oh, oh, it is going to be one of those races,’ said Short, who at this stage is leading on IRC handicap. A late challenge could come from Roger Hickman’s Wild Rose.

‘It was a vastly different race from last year,’ continued Short, who won line honours in 2004 with a different yacht. ‘Last year we came up inside the reef in light winds, and saw plenty of wildlife. This year, we kept outside the islands and reefs and saw very little. Despite the conditions, I still think this is a fantastic race,’ he said

Wedgetail, the Queensland entry which was built by skipper Bill Wild and his friends at the back of a wreckers yard in Brisbane, proved a dark horse. Launched only a week ago, the Wellbourne 42 set a cracking pace on her maiden voyage after the bowman fell overboard at the start of the race. ‘We were doing 15 – 20 knots most of the way,’ said Wild. ‘We had a great race.’

Short Shipped, the Farr 40 owned by Matthew Short, is expected into Mackay Harbour at around 5.45 this evening.

The next scheduled position report will be at 1615 hours for updates on the remaining four yachts.

Elapsed times to date:

Seriously Ten: 1:22:46:24

Wedgetail: 2:1:04:22

Club Marine: 2:1:47:20

Living Doll: 2:1:52:45