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  • Rolex Sydney Hobart race fleet keeps it simple

Rolex Sydney Hobart race fleet keeps it simple

Rolex Sydney Hobart race fleet keeps it simple
Wild Oats XI and Alfa Romeo lead the Rolex Sydney Hobart fleet out of Sydney Harbour

Rolex Sydney Hobart race fleet keeps it simple

As the wind eases into the evening the fleet is slowing down, the leaders dropping to a more prosaic 13 knots, Alfa Romeo enjoys a 10 mile lead over the schedule set by Nokia when she set the record in 1999.

As the 85 boats in the fleet enter the first evening of the race the character of this race is becoming evident:  don’t muck about with fancy tactics - put your foot to the floor and get to Hobart the shortest way possible.

Throughout the afternoon, in light easterly breezes the fleet has steadily spread out along the rhumb line, the theoretical line that marks the most direct course to Hobart. 

While the smallest boats, Alex Whitworth's Berrimilla and David Kent's Gillawa were making good speed at around 6 knots, and in the middle of the fleet the fifty and sixty footers like Gerard O'Rourke's Chieftain and Stephen Ainsworth's Loki were seeing speeds above 10 knots, the front runners Alfa Romeo (Neville Crichton), Wild Oats XI (Bob Oatley) and Skandia (Grant Wharington) were finding speeds of 15 and 16 knots, well in excess of the wind speed.

At dusk you could just about throw a blanket over the three frontrunners.  As expected Alfa Romeo and Wild Oats XI have been inseperable, with pre-race favourite Alfa Romeo in front for most of the afternoon, but the rebuilt Skandia has been a revelation, matching her newer, more fancied rivals for speed throughout the afternoon and, at times, closing the gap to within a mile.

As her delighted sailing master Will Oxley said at 6 o’clock this evening, “we’re still in the hunt.”

As the wind eases into the evening the fleet is slowing down, the leaders dropping to a more prosaic 13 knots, Alfa Romeo enjoys a 10 mile lead over the schedule set by Nokia when she set the record in 1999.