WILD OATS XI RECLAIMS ROLEX TITLE
IT must have been a moment that brought great satisfaction to the Oatley family as their super maxi Wild Oats XI skippered by Mark Richards swept across the finish line on the River Severn in the heart of the Tasmanian capital yesterday, signalling the end of the 74th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and the culmination of three years of misery since her last victory.
Even the finish time of one day 19 hours 7 minutes 21 seconds, 10 hours outside the race record of one day 9 hours 15 minutes 24 seconds set last year by this year’s third place finisher, Comanche, would not have mattered as the 100-footer claimed yet another (ninth) line honours victory to underscore her domination of this ‘Down Under’ 628 nautical mile blue water classic.
Wild Oats XI had set the record straight and won a battle with four of the five super maxis entered in the fleet of 85 yachts in the race with just four nautical miles separating them before Wild Oats XI came into her own. Peter Harburg’s Black Jack from Queensland was second 7min 45 sec later, followed by Comanche 63 seconds after that in third place with Christian Beck’s InfoTrack fourth 15min 08sec later for a stunning finale. Never before have four yachts fought it out throughout the 43 hours of racing, eclipsing the 1982 Sydney Hobart line honours finish which saw Bob Bell’s Condor of Bermuda beat Jack Rooklyn’s Apollo by seven seconds.
It was also the termination of three successive years of misfortune for the Wild Oats family which saw the maxi having to retire from the race in 2015 with a torn main, followed a year later with a second retirement, this time with hydraulic ram problems and, to cap it all, last year’s intriguing and controversial finish when Wild Oats XI was handed a one hour penalty after an incident soon after the start with Comanche, with the fleet still in Sydney Harbour, which cost Wild Oats XI her line honours crown and what would have been a new race record. This year’s victory sees a new record of nine line honours for Wild Oats XI, one more than the eight years of line honours accumulated by Kurrewa/ Morna in 2014.
In IRC, Chutzpah was sitting first overall, with over two hours up her sleeve on corrected time. Chutzpah was predicted to finish before 5am today. In contention for the overall win and the Tattersall cup were Chutzpah, Smuggler, Privateer, 2 Unlimited and Showtime.
Sydney Harbour was crowded with hundreds of spectator boats for the 1pm start, making life difficult for some of the super maxis skippers with Black Jack the first yacht out of the Heads, taking over 13 minutes to clear the harbour along with InfoTrack, Wild Oats XI, Comanche and Scallywag. Nine hours into the race and Wild Oats XI had established a narrow lead over the other super maxis with Comanche five nautical miles behind and Infotrack and Black Jack between it and Wild Oats XI. Meanwhile the battle for maxi supremacy continued all through the first night among the four maxi yachts with Wild Oats XI passing the overnight leader Comanche shortly before sunrise, just 45 nautical miles out from the finish in Hobart.
Hot on their trail was Peter Harburg’s Black Jack followed by Christian Beck’s Infotrack about 4nm behind, all four averaging a speed of about 15 knots. As the northerly wind speed dropped close to Tasman Island so did the boat speeds begin to slow, which saw Black Jack edge past Comanche into second place with Wild Oats XI gradually extending her lead, and with Tasman Island behind all of them the chances of a nail-biting finale became a reality in the final stage of the race across Storm Bay and the final passage up the Derwent River to the finish line.