Line honours to Limit in Audi Sydney Mackay race

by Lisa Ratcliff on 2 Aug 2007 Alan Brierty’s Corby 49 Limit took line honours in the Audi Sydney Mackay Yacht Race at 6.48am this morning, giving them an elapsed time of 4 days 17 minutes 48 seconds. Amazingly, it was a following race for almost the entire 898 nautical miles with only seven or so hours of racing without a spinnaker.

Sailing master Roger Hickman and owner Alan Brierty were delighted to beat the small fleet to the finish line at Mackay and importantly, Brierty was able to jump on a 10am flight back to Perth where he is due to attend a black tie function tonight. Brierty is a finalist for the Ernst & Young 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year and the Western Region award ceremony is being held tonight.

Hickman had a couple of coastal pick ups arranged if they’d run out of time to put Brierty on a flight home but in the end, they had a whole hour and a half to spare.

'We were racing the other boats but we were also racing the clock,' admitted Hickman.

'It’s the longest coastal race in Australia and Alan and the crew are proud to have completed the course. We began last Saturday from Sydney Harbour in plenty of pressure and between Southport and the finish line at Mackay, the sailing was perfect with a full moon guiding us each night, spectacular scenery and 8-10 knot sou’easters for most of the way.

'As we went north, the wet weather gear was slowly replaced by t-shirts and shorts,' Hickman said this morning.

Approaching the finish line at daybreak this morning, a still half asleep Brierty poked his head out of the cabin and thought the crew had played a joke on him. With more than 70 container ships at anchor off Haye Point at Mackay, in his confused and tired state, Brierty thought they were back sailing off Newcastle on the NSW coast reported a laughing Hickman.

The next boat due to finish is David Pescud’s Sailors with disAbilities, due around 3pm this afternoon.

Dennis Cooper’s Amante is the third boat expected to finish, their ETA currently the afternoon of 4 August, followed by Ian Sanford’s Tartan.

Official race website http://mackay.cyca.com.au
Audi Australia www.audi.com.au