Sydney-Hobart record set to fall as favourite retires
SYDNEY: Australian supermaxi Perpetual Loyal is on track to smash the record time for the Sydney to Hobart race by several hours, as disaster struck eighttime winner Wild Oats XI.
Local favourite Wild Oats – the race’s most successful yacht – was forced to retire from the gruelling contest with keel damage, losing the chance to capitalise on favourable winds that saw the leaders chase record times.
The chance to beat the record of 1 day 18hrs 23mins 12secs, set by Wild Oats in 2012, instead fell to Loyal skippered by Anthony Bell.
Loyal was last at some 37 nautical miles southeast of St Helens Point off Tasmania, and could finish the race as early as midnight (1300 GMT Tuesday), organisers the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA) said.
CYCA’s Commodore John Markos told reporters Tuesday a f ternoon the favourable conditions “will make it a pretty hard record to break” if a new time is set early Wednesday.
Bell, in a bid to become more competitive, brought in half the world- class crew of America’s Comanche, which took out line honours last year.
He had predicted his heavy but powerful vessel would struggle in the light winds against leaner boats.
But the supermaxi shot out of Sydney harbour Monday into an early lead, followed by Hong Kong businessman Seng Huang Lee’s entrant Scallywag.
It was the second straight year that Wild Oats had to pull out from the 628-nautical-mile (1,163 kilometre) event along Australia’s east coast, with a mainsail rip thwarting her ambitions in 2015.
The Wild Oats team said in a Facebook post that the supermaxi was forced to withdraw from the bluewater classic due to the “failure of the hydraulic keel control mechanism”.
The keel helps to counteract the weight of the wind on the sails and enables the yacht to remain more upright.
The yacht was leading the field in the middle of the Bass Strait when the failure occurred, the team said, adding that none of the 22-man crew were hurt. — AFP