Light breeze for Melbourne to Hobart fleet

by Jennifer McGuigan on 30 Dec 2006 At the 5.05 am sched this morning the fleet in the Heemskirk Consolidated Melbourne to Hobart race was struggling with very light northerly breezes of five knots. Seas are flat with a half metre swell. To take advantage of the light breezes the crews would be pulling out their bigger spinnakers.

The unlikely weather for the West Coast is set to continue with a forecast for variable winds 5 to 10 knots and afternoon sea breezes.

Overnight movement around the boats has been kept to a minimum to maximise speed in the very light winds, a tense night for the crews.

David Phillip’s Hasta la Vista maintains the lead by the smallest of margins, just one mile ahead of Jeff Otter’s Icefire and Matt Hannafords’s NoFearr. These two boats are on the same latitude with No Fearr closer into shore. All three are just North of Port Davey.

Whilst almost the entire fleet remains hugging the shore Phil Bedlington’s Under Capricorn has made a successful bold tactical move and have gone out to sea. The gains south they have made overnight are more than double the rest of the fleet, however they are now approximately 50 miles off the rhumbline. This places them in the lead on handicap, time will tell if he can maintain this gain.

The Hobart based Archie skippered by Sally Rattle continues to track in fourth position well inshore just past Low Rocky Point running parallel to Richard McGarvie’s Addiction which is an equal distance the other side of the rhumbline.

Laurie Ford’s Varta Spirit of Downunder is three miles behind Addiction with Don Fraser’s Elektra clipping their transom a further mile back.

Eddie Ragauskas’s A Crewed Interest and Graham Ryan’s Tevake are past High Rocky Point, followed by Bill Feore’s Plantronics Voyager.

Robin Hewitt’s Yoko will be struggling in the light airs as the boat has a lot of weight they are four miles behind Plantronics and five miles in front of Allan Schafer’s Pilara.

Julian Robinson’s Tamar based Apollonius has tracked west off the rhumbline presumably looking for more breeze. John Geist’s Ruthless continues south though with less speed than would be expected from this well performed veteran. Doug Abbott’s Afrayed Knot is half way between Cape Sorell and Point Hibbs.

With the leaders having approximately 125 miles still to travel before berthing at Elizabeth Street Pier the navigators and tacticians will be tested, as they try to maximise every puff and wisp of breeze.

At the current rate of progress the first yachts are not expected to finish before tomorrow morning.