Ocean-Yachting 2003 - Hobart Race zur Übersicht - http://rolexsydneyhobart.com Betreff: RegattaNews Press Info Datum: 29. Dec 2003 14:35 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2200 AEDT - 59th Rolex Sydney Hobart becoming a small boat race At sunset on Monday, 12 boats had finished the 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart. Line honours belong to Grant Wharington's Skandia, which finished before dawn this morning. Handicap honours are still open, all now depends on how the wind holds up overnight for the small boats in the fleet. Ichi Ban vor der austr.Küste Foto: Carlo Borlenghi Grant Wharington's Skandia collected line honours in the Rolex Sydney Hobart at 0414 on Monday morning, crossing the finish line of the 628-mile classic offshore race just 14 minutes ahead of the New Zealand-registered Maxi Zana. The pair had sailed in sight of each other just about the whole way from Sydney, coming to within four lengths of each other at one point last night before Skandia managed to squeeze away again and indextain her lead to the finish. Further back the middle-sized boats Yendys, Bounder, Ichi Ban and Quest all chose different paths to the finish line in an effort to out wit the opposition, the weather and the clock. Twenty-four hours ago it looked like Geoff Ross' Spanish-built Yendys with her star-studded crew would clean up on handicap and collect overall honours, something Ross has previously achieved with an older boat back in 1999. The boat Ross sailed back then has been chartered to Royal Ocean Racing Club Commodore Chris Little this year and renamed Bounder for this race. Little's crew, which includes Hobart veteran navigator Andrew Cape, moved past the newer Yendys on corrected time last night by indextaining a more offshore course, away from the influence of the Tasmanian coast and the lighter winds. Cape and the British crew continued to guide the smaller Bounder smartly across Storm Bay all afternoon on Monday and managed to sail to within less than a mile of the much fancied Yendys as both boats all but stopped at the bottom of the Derwent River at the end of the afternoon. The pair had to use every tiny zephyr and element of their sixth sense instincts in an effort to get to the line in mirror-like conditions. Now the corrected time clock and the conditions further up the course will decide whether the boats already moored in Hobart's Constitution Dock will win out over those smaller craft still at sea. The wind is not expected to reappear before the middle of the morning, which will leave precious little time for the half dozen or so boats that still have a realistic chance of overall honours to get to the finish. Of those already home, Bounder tops the list. Now the waiting game starts. The Rolex Sydney Hobart uses a tracking system to monitor the entire fleet, whose individual positions are collected and updated every 10 minutes and then graphically presented on the official website: http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/yacht_tracker.asp?key=522 Provisional interim results are also available on the official website at: http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/standings.asp?key=524 Rolex Sydney Hobart - Quotes: "We have been in an incredible tussle for the last three days. It has been unbelievable to race so closely with so many boats for such a long time. The first two days were a match race with Ragamuffin, but before Tasman Island they tacked inshore and seemed to lose a huge amount of distance. That was the thing about this race, you had to stay in touch with the wind." - Chris Little, owner/skipper of Farr 49 Bounder, Commodore of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, provisional leader overall on IMS Class A in the 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart. "We had a pretty good race, but always with the Rolex Sydney Hobart crossing Storm Bay and sailing up the Derwent River is where the race is won or lost. Our boat was totally prepared for sailing a tough race like the Hobart, very different conditions from sailing in the Mediterranean." "This boat Yendys was built in Spain and has campaigned extensively on the Spanish IMS circuit, but we had to modify it for a rough race like this. We had a reef in the index for about 20% of the race. In Spain the boat was never reefed. The kind of racing we do in the Med is windward leeward courses. Never reaching, we did a lot of reaching here. It requires a very different set up." - Joan Vila, navigator of Judel/Vrolijk 52 Yendys, provisional leader overall on IMS in the 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart. "That was a pretty stop and start kind of day. Earlier today we had 25 knots of wind downwind, we went around Tasman Island at 0900 this morning and it's taken us all day to get across Storm Bay and up the Derwent River to the finish. We beat our immediate opposition so we're quite pleased about that. Overall the story is out of our control - so what will be, will be!" - Gordon Maguire, crew on board Matt Allen's Farr 52 Ichi Ban, first mid-sized boat to finish. "It's curious to me how unpredictable and how rapidly the weather changes. Our predictions for this race were very different from what we experienced. We'd studied the weather of the last ten years of the Hobart, we charted it, plotted it, set the boat up for the average of the ten years, but there is no average weather." - Skip Sheldon, owner/skipper Reichel/Pugh 65 Zarrafa, provisional leader overall on IMS in the 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart. The full 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart press pack, press releases, entry list and editorial use photos can be found online at: www.regattanews.com Rolex Sydney Hobart Media Centre (until 0900 local time (GMT + 10 hours) 27th December 2003)v Cruising Yacht Club of Australia New Beach Road Rushcutters' Bay Sydney, NSW, Australia Tel: +61 2 9327 5867 Fax: +61 2 9327 5167 Email: rshyrmedia@bigpond.com Rolex Sydney Hobart Media Centre (from 0900 local time (GMT + 10 hours) 27th December 2003) Waterside Pavilion, Mawson Place, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia Tel: +61 3 6231 9367 Email: rshyrmedia@bigpond.com International Press Information: Key Partners, KPMS, 2, Rue de Terreaux, CH-2001 Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Tel: +33 662647475 Email: media-info@regattanews.com Web: regattanews.com Copyright © 1996-2016 - SEGEL.DE