Hempel 2007 Lord Howe Island Race start

by Peter Campbell on 27 Oct 2007 A fleet of 18 yachts from New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria has made a very, very slow start to the 414nm ocean race to Lord Howe Island which got under way from Broken Bay at 1:00pm today.

In fact, it took the leading boat, the Volvo 60 Getaway-Sailing.com nearly two hours to reach the inshore turning mark off The Haven at Terrigal. Four hours after the start some ten boats still had not reached the mark, designed to give spectators a cliff-top view of the fleet.

The forecast for coastal waters for this afternoon was 5-15 knots. The reverse applied. The fleet got away to a spectacular, hard-fought start in a 12-15 knot east-north-east breeze, but within half an hour the wind dropped to beteween 2 and 5 knots, leaving most yachts rolling about in the uncomfortable offshore swell.

At the first 'sked' (position report) with the Newcastle Coastal Patrol base, Getaway-Sailing.com, skippered by Peter Goldsworthy from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, had sailed less than 16 sea miles in just over two hours.

Getaway-Sailing.com was first boat to round the Terrigal mark, following by modified Farr 40 AFR Midnight Rambler (Ed Psaltis and Bob Thomas) and the Cookson 12 Occasional Coarse Language, skippered by Warwick Sherman.

Based on the 'sked' positions, low rating boats are dominating the top positions on IRC and PHS handicaps. The Gosford Sailing Club entrant Polaris of Belmont (Chris Dawe) is placed first on IRC corrected time from the Cavalier 35 Morna (Greg Zyner) from Manly Yacht Club with Occasional Coarse Language (Warwick Sherman) in third place.

In the PHS division, another CYCA boat Time Out (Peter Blair) currently heads the leader board from the Canberra Ocean Racing Club's Namadgi (Rick Scott) and the Queensland entrant Dream Lover (Rick Morgan).

As always, the Hempel Gosford to Lord Howe Island Race is a significant event on the ocean racing calendar being the only Category 1 ocean race in Australia outside of the Rolex Sydney Hobart. Many of the yachts racing to Lord Howe are also competing in the Hobart Race.

The ongoing and enthusiastic sponsorship of the Hempel Yacht Paints has enabled the Gosford Sailing Club to provide services unique to the event including individual pilotage into the Lord Howe Island lagoon, full-time tender transport and pre-payment of the various mooring and environmental fees levied by the Island management.

Hempel Yacht Paints, a leading international boat-finish, is sponsoring the Lord Howe Island race for the second year