The First Tax and Duty Free
Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race
NEWS RELEASE Monday April 5 2010.
RACE HISTORY SET TO CHANGE.
Peter Harburg’s high performance Black Jack ocean racing crew promise to write their own chapter into the colourful 62 year history of the 308 n/ml Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race in 2011.
Both the popular owner Peter Harburg and his talented skipper Mark Bradford who were happy with winning back to back line honours with the exceptionally fast 13.93 and 14.08 knot averages and have made the decision to be on the start line in 2011 to complete some unfinished business.
“We believe Black Jack to have the speed potential to break the 2004 20 hour 24 minute 50 second record and were coming back to have another crack at it”. Mark Bradford said.
Based on her calculated elapsed time by her waterline length the 20.3 m Black Jack with her .693 knot per metre is considerably faster than the .503 knot per metre average set by the 30 metre Skandia Wild Thing when she set the official race record in 2004.
The potential has been proved when Black Jack powered to hold the fastest time ever recorded to complete the first half of the race only to slip behind over the final 35 n/mls between Bustard Head and the finish.
Her 6 hour 53 minute 23 second winning margin over the 18.48m Nikon Spirit of the Maid which narrowly salvaged second place by 1 second over the fast finishing 12.8 m Hugh Welbourne designed Wedgetail proved she is on the verge of claiming a special place in the history of this classic race.
She also fell short by the narrow margin of 1.91 seconds per mile to outpace her 1.596 handicap rating to claim a rare line honours and handicap double.
However they were happy to see another popular owner Bill Wild finally claim his first Courier Mail Cup win with the equally well sailed Wedgetail while Gladstone Yacht Club skipper Jeff Paul completed a spray drenching 308 n/ml ride with his Farr 30 RBS Morgan’s Immigrant to achieve is career best result another 21 minutes 21 seconds off the pace.
The hard running spinnaker sailing trade winds favoured the Mooloolaba Yacht Club’s David Simpson to score a narrow 5 minute 1 second win in the Performance Handicap class while Immigrant and Corum co skippered by father and son Geoff and Todd Anderson finished third 9 minutes 51 seconds astern.