The unrelenting gusty trade winds are expected to gust above 20 knots to provide the international standard Audi Hamilton Island Race Week fleet with a searching test of racing in the windy Whitsunday Island waters today.
Unfortunately the surface trough in the Coral Sea has continued to close on the Queensland tropical coast while the associated high in the Tasman Sea have combined to direct another strong wind ‘torture test’ on the fleet.
The brute breeze which gusted to a recorded 33 knots on Tuesday left an expensive list of damage to deck fittings, sails, spars and individual reputations.
Among the most notable list of retirements was the defending IRC Grand Prix champion the high performance Sydney sloop Loki forced out when a mast spreader punched a hole in her mainsail.
Prior to the incident the Loki crew who had closed the gap on the provisional leader Hooligan by winning the two short course windward leeward races was poised to continue with her challenge.
But their hopes were literally torn apart seconds after the start when her mainsail was reduced to tatters.
However the Stephen Ainsworth owned and Gordon Maguire skippered Loki promises to continue with their nip-n-tuck tactical dogfight fight against their equally impressive rival the Marcus Blackmore skippered Hooligan on the course to day in a bid to keep a successful championship defence alive.
Hooligan presently holds the upper hand with the more consistent 1-1-1-2-2-1 score compared with Loki 2-3-2-1-1-13 but the Loki crew have not given up hope of staging a fight back forcing the title into a match race in the final on Saturday.
Meanwhile Bob Oatley’s super maxi Wild Oats X1 remains poised to win the ‘Gun Boat’ of the series trophy with a perfect line honours score over her big boat rivals Investic Loyal and Lahana