Favourite Wild Oats XI retires from Sydney-Hobart race
SYDNEY: Disaster struck for eight-time winner Wild Oats XI as she was forced to retire from the Sydney to Hobart race Tuesday with keel damage, amid favourable winds that saw the leaders chase record times.
It was the second-straight year that the local favourite – the race’s most successful yacht – had to pull out from the gruelling 628nautical- mile (1,163 kilometre) event.
“The race leader Wild Oats XI has been forced out of the race with a keel problem, a hydraulic problem,” Wild Oats’ media manager Rob Mundle said in a video posted online.
“The yacht is in the middle of Bass Strait. She’s now turned back to head towards Eden (a town some 480 kilometres south of Sydney). She should be there sometime early tomorrow.”
Mundle added that the crew were safe and there were “no great dramas with the yacht”.
The supermaxi withdrew from the bluewater classic last year after her mainsail ripped, with rival Comanche – which is not contesting the race this year – taking line honours.
The setback also struck months after Wild Oats owner, multimillionaire Australian winemaker Bob Oatley, died aged 87.
Wild Oats, skippered by Mark Richards, on Tuesday morning was leading the race to challenge the record of 1 day 18hrs 23mins 12secs that it set in 2012.
But as she approached the northeast coast of Flinders Island in eastern Bass Strait, she suffered damage to the hydraulic ram, which adjusts the angle of the canting, or swinging, keel beneath the hull.
The crew were able to manually centre and stabilise the keel, but made the decision to withdraw from the race, organisers said.
Perpetual LOYAL – helmed by Anthony Bell – assumed the lead after the withdrawal, with Giacomo in second place ahead of Maserati,
The race leader Wild Oats XI has been forced out of the race with a keel problem, a hydraulic problem.
Hong Kong businessman Seng Huang Lee’s entrant Scallywag and Beau Geste.
It remained on race record pace and, supported by good easterly winds Tuesday, could finish hours inside the record early Wednesday morning in Hobart, organisers added.
Bell had predicted his heavy but powerful vessel would struggle in the light winds against leaner boats, but his supermaxi shot out of Sydney harbour Monday into an early lead followed by Scallywag.
Bel l , in a bid to be more competitive, brought in half the world- class crew of Comanche.
David Witt, at the helm of Scallywag, correctly predicted a record was on.
“If I had to write a forecast for us, it would be this one,” he said Monday.
“Light air just forward of the beam really suits us.”
The hardest part of this year’s race could prove to be the fi nale along the Tasmanian Coast and up the fickle Derwent River leading to Hobart’s Constitution Dock, where windless holes can halt a boat for hours while others sail through on a breeze.
“It’s pretty nice from here to the corner now, the new high pressure’s coming over so we don’t have any major transitions to get through,” Perpetual LOYAL’s navigator Tom Addis told the Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday afternoon.
“The main concern is going to be light breezes after Tasman to the fi nish.”
Perpetual LOYAL was some 63 nautical miles northeast of Eddystone Point off Tasmania on Tuesday afternoon.
Storms are a regular hazard in one of the world’s most challenging races, with six men dying, five boats sinking and 55 sailors rescued on a fatal night in 1998 when a deep depression exploded over the Tasman Sea.
Apart from Wild Oats, two other vessels have been forced to retire this year with Freyja, a 71-yearold timber cruiser blowing out her headsail just beyond the Heads and Dare Devil breaking a rudder, leaving 86 yachts at sea. — AFP
Rob Mundle, Wild Oats’ media manager