Secret’s nearly out of the bag

• NEWS
• 30 Dec, 2010 09:30:00 AM

Secret’s nearly out of the bag

Geoff Boettcher’s South Australian yacht Secret Men’s Business 3.5 looks set for corrected time honours in this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race as the only two other contenders overnight dropped off the pace.

Geoff Boettcher’s South Australian yacht Secret Men’s Business 3.5 looks set for corrected time honours in this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race as the only two other contenders overnight dropped off the pace.

Should Secret Men’s Business 3.5 be declared the winner of the Tattersall’s Cup, it will be the second South Australian yacht to take the top trophy in consecutive years.

The leader on corrected time for most of yesterday, Darryl Hodgkinson’s Sydney boat Victoire missed her 3.16am deadline today by one hour and 25 minutes. It left Peter Mosely’s Local Hero as the only boat at sea still likely to challenge Secret Men’s Business 3.5.

Local Hero has to be in Hobart by 9.19am today (Thursday) but is still only half way down the Tasmanian east coast and not due in Hobart until about 10 o’clock tonight. Local Hero may seek time redress for standing by the dismasted Bacardi on Monday but it seems it’s not going to be enough to get the BH36 over the line.

Boettcher modified the original version of Secret Men’s Business 3.5, hence the .5, to improve the Reichel Pugh 51’s upwind performance, clearly a shrewd move.

Race organiser Cruising Yacht Club of Australia is expected to formally announce the overall winner today.

At 8.30am 24 boats had finished the race, 18 had retired and 45 were still at sea. While the fanfare of yesterday’s line honours announcement might have faded, for half of the original starting fleet their race is not over.

Chris Dawe’s Polaris of Belmont was last night reported as retired, but at this morning’s sked they confirmed they are still racing south.

Today’s forecast for the Tasmanian east coast is for west to south west winds, 10-20 knots easing to 15 knots this morning and variable to 15 this afternoon.

The last boat on the standings is Morgan Rogers’ Wave Sweeper, a Beneteau 40.7, which should round out the fleet at 1pm tomorrow bringing all boats in by New Year’s Eve.

By Bruce Montgomery, Rolex Sydney Hobart media team