Maxis engaged in super battle for line honours
SAILING: The Sydney to Hobart yacht race is experiencing one of it’s greatest line honours battles with the four Australian supermaxis all still in contention almost a full day after the start of the race. While great rivals Wild Oats XI and Comanche swapped the lead several times over Wednesday evening and yesterday morning, Black Jack and
InfoTrack stayed on their hammer. After 23 hours of racing, Comanche held a three nautical mile lead over Black Jack, which had both InfoTrack and Wild Oats XI within a mile of
her.
Both crew and officials said it was rare to have such a close four-way tussle for the lead. “We’ve been in close races with Comanche before but we’ve never been in such a close race with four of us,” said Wild Oats XI crewman Chris Links.
Cruising Yacht Club of Australia commodore Paul Bellingham added: “I think what it shows is the way the boats are configuring now, they are good in all conditions.”
Comanche was unable to pull away when the winds were at their strongest, and most in her favour, late on Wednesday. With the wind dropping yesterday, lighter air specialist Black Jack loomed as a real threat.
Comanche’s 2017 race record mark of one day, nine hours, 15 minutes and 24 seconds looks safe with the first boats not expected to finish until well into this morning.
The line honours winner needed to cross the line before 10.15pm (AEDT) overnight to set a new record.
The battle for handicap honours is also expected to take many twists and turns over the next couple of days as the fleet seeks to avoid falling into patches of little or no wind.
“We could end up with a bit of a parking lot,” Bellingham said.