Grundig looking good for treble win in Sydney-Gold Coast Race

by Di Pearson on 27 Jul 2003 The 66 yachts left racing in the 386 nautical mile Sydney-Gold Coast Race are still making good time, with the lead boats sailing under record time, in icy cold but pleasant 12-15 knot south-west winds as they wend their way towards the Main Beach finish off Southport in Queensland.

Julie Hodder reported from Magnavox 2UE this morning just before 7.00am, ‘we are off Coffs Harbour having a pleasant sail. Things have calmed down, we had 15-20 knots from the south-west all night. We had a bit of a scare around 7.000pm, we were pulling the kite down, we got about half way when the halyard got jammed in the sheave. We got knocked down for about half an hour. It wasn’t very nice. Lindsay Stead went up the mast and had to cut it away.

It’s freezing out here – I’ve got three layers of thermals on it’s that cold, and we are having good racing out here, at the moment we are playing catch-up with Andrew Short Marine djuice, we were in front of them last night but they passed us. We’ve got Indec (David Gotze) behind us, we passed them about 4.00am this morning, but Grundig (Sean Langman), Luna Park Sydney (Ludde Ingvall) and Broomstick (Ray Wallace/Michael Cranitch) are still all in front of us. Grundig must have had a problem of some sort too, because she was alongside us for a while around the time we passed Indec.’

‘We worked really hard last night, and are still working hard, we are sailing east of the rhumbline at the moment and just starting to go faster,’ Hodder added.

Conditions for the bigger boats as they approach Queensland waters look good for record breaking. The Bureau of Meteorology predicts west-sou-westerlies for the southern Queensland Coast, easing later in the morning with winds tending south to south east at 10/15 knots during the afternoon.

Grundig continues her line honours and overall handicap assault, travelling under spinnaker with only 117 nautical miles to go to her destination. Her lead is all the more extraordinary in the fact that skipper, Sean Langman is sailing with five crew only, apart from himself – not easy in these conditions, there will be no rest for the wicked.

George Snow’s Brindabella, which is currently for sail and not participating in this race, holds the current race record in 27 hours 35 minutes and 3 seconds, which was set in 1999.

Luna Park Sydney (Ludde Ingvall), Andrew Short Marine djuice (Andrew Short), Magnavox 2UE and Indec are next on line and sailing quickly, according to CYCA sources this morning.

For the smaller yachts on the NSW coast, south west winds at 15-20 inshore and 20 to 25 offshore easing to 10/15 and 15/20 respectively during the day, with much the same tomorrow. It appears that the small boats are having much better weather than expected and feature largely in the handicap results.

Anthony Paterson is once again doing a great job with his Mumm 30 Tow Truck in 2nd place overall in IRC, with Bill Wild’s Mumm 36 in hot pursuit in 4th place.

Two yachts have retired from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia conducted race; the Sydney 38 Rush (Cameron Miles/Steve Robson) and Phil and Nada Dickinson’s Champagne on Ice, both suffered broken steering cables.

Current Leaders by handicap classes this morning are:

IRC Overall

1. Grundig (Sean Langman)

2. Tow Truck (Anthony Paterson) Mumm 30

3. Corum (Bill Wild) Mumm 36

IRC A

1. Grundig

2. Espresso Forte (Laurence Freedman) Farr 54

3. Andrew Short Marine djuice (Andrew Short) Volvo 60

IRC B

1. About Time (Julian Farren-Price)Cookson 12

2. Big Kahuna (Dean Harrigan) Beneteau 52

3. Easy Tiger (Chris Way/Rob McWilliam) Sydney 38

IMS A

1. Andrew Short Marine

2. Ragamuffin (Syd Fischer) Farr 50

3. Stratcorp Ninety Seven (Chris Dare)Farr 47

IMS B

1. Pendragon (Andrew Cochrane) Stewart 34

2. Amante (Dennis Cooper) Sydney 36

3. Nips-N-Tux (Matthew De Torres) IMX 40

To see the complete handicap information go to
http://www.sail-world.com/southport/index.cfm?SRSID=60