Wild Oats X1
By Ian Grant At Hamilton Island
Sydney ocean racing skipper Stephen Ainsworth had his hopes of successfully defending the Audi Hamilton Island IRC championship reduced to tatters on Dent Passage today.
His high performance racing crew onboard Loki looked aloft seconds after their $80,000 dollar mainsail was torn shortly after the gybed during a strong 35 knot gust.
Unfortunately the superbly prepared 19.4 m blue water ocean racer was left motionless in the water while her crew lowered the sail and retired from the 63n/ml Double Cone Island race.
Prior to the unfortunate incident Loki which won the 2010 Audi Hamilton Island Race Week series with a race to spare was locked in a boat on boat match race with the smaller TP52 Hooligan skippered by Marcus Blackmore.
When skipper Stephen Ainsworth stepped ashore he was disappointed but simply said ‘That’s yacht racing”.
As expected the brute breeze which turned the Whitsunday Passage into a ‘torture track’ when the boisterous breeze peaked 35 knots propelling the race leader Wild Oats X1 an exciting pace as she left a white water wake for her rivals to follow.
Mark Richards eventually steered the super maxi Wild Oats X1 to another runaway win over Investic Loyal (Peter Merrington) and Lahana (Peter Millard)
Naturally the brute breeze forced a long list of retirements with blown spinnakers, bent spars and mainsails reduced to tatters among the expensive damage inflicted on the fleet during another day of spectacular heavy wind racing in the windy Whitsunday Islands.
Hooligan the Marcus Blackmore helmed TP52 expressed the skill of her high standard crew to take a commanding lead in the championship when they record a 9 minute 2 second win over the Victorian Farr 55 Living Doll (Michael Hiatt while Robert Hanna steered the Victorian TP52 into third another 3 minutes 7 seconds off the pace.