Perpetual LOYAL takes early lead in Sydney to Hobart race
SYDNEY (AP) — Supermaxi Perpetual LOYAL was first through Sydney Heads for the second straight year after eight-time line honors winner Wild Oats XI botched Monday's start to the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.
Skippered by Australia's Anthony Bell, Perpetual LOYAL lived up to its billing as the fastest supermaxi in the world as it led the 88-yacht fleet out of Sydney Harbour near the start of the 628 nautical mile passage to Hobart on the island state of Tasmania.
Forecasts of premium sailing conditions have led to preditions the 72nd edition of the classic ocean race will be won in race record time.
Wild Oats XI is favored to take line honors for the ninth time but had to scramble to stay in touch with its main rivals after missing the start and being forced pick its way past smaller yachts.
Ludde Ingvall's radical 100 foot racer CQS also struck early trouble, heeling over dramatically in ortherly winds of about 20 knots just after the start in what may have been a keel malfunction. CQS took line honors in 2004 when it was known as Nicorette.
The 80-footer Beau Geste was the second boat out of the heads after Perpetual LOYAL and by the first mark Wild Oats XI had recovered to third.
Perpetual LOYAL has often favored celebrity crews but moved this year to take on several of the crew from last year's line honors winner Commanche. The yacht has had bad luck the past two years, withdrawing last year with rudder damage and in 2014 after striking a submerged object.
Bell was confident of a better showing this year.
"We'll be looking to go to areas of the racetrack that probably sail further away from them but might actually give us faster boat speed," he said. "The three other skinnier boats will probably form a bit of a pack and we'll be like the ugly duckling somewhere out there.
"The back end of Tasmania always gets a bit tricky, but I think the first people to get through the southerly transition and into the fresh breeze will make a real profit."
Scallywag, formerly raced as Ragamuffin 100 by race stalwart Syd Fischer who fired the starting cannon on Monday, was also prominent early but gave up third place to Wild Oats XI after a problem raising its spinnaker near the first mark.
Wild Oats XI has held the race record since 2012 at 18 hours, 23 minutes, 12 seconds.
Skippers and crewmen aboard the leading yachts were confident the race record would come under threat this year.
"I think it does look optimistic for a race record," Wild Oats XI tactician Iain Murray said. "The breeze is kind, there's a lot of northerly quadrant wind.
"The race record is not actually that fast, it's 17 knots average or something like that. We averaged 21 knots in the Brisbane to Keppel race earlier in the year. In a couple of knots of current, there's plenty of opportunity for these 100 footers to go faster than the race record."
Scallywag skipper David Witt was emphatic "the race record will be broken."
"Our routing has got one day 11 hours to the Iron Pot (island)," he said. "That's seven hours inside the record and with about 12 miles to sail."
