Sydney to Hobart supermaxis avoiding contact until Boxing Day
THE “Fab Four” - the quartet of multimillion-dollar ocean racing machinery favoured to dominate this year’s Sydney to Hobart won’t actually meet each other until Boxing Day.
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The “Fab Four” - the quartet of multimillion-dollar ocean racing machinery favoured to dominate this year’s Sydney to Hobart - won’t actually meet each other until the starting canon fires on Boxing Day.
InfoTrack, which last year smashed the race record as Perpetual Loyal, is avoiding any confrontation with rivals until the 1pm start on December 26.
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Neville Crichton and his team on LDV Comanche, which won line honours in 2015, are adopting the same approach.
“We start training on our own,” Crichton said of his 100-footer, borrowed from Netscape founder Jim Clark for his last hoorah in the Australian classic,
“We won’t be doing any races at all, just training.”
InfoTrack skipper Christian Beck said he and his crew will also use private training session, rather than racing, to prepare for the Sydney to Hobart.
A novice to offshore racing, Beck said his personal goal is to win the race up the harbour and through Sydney Heads on Boxing Day.
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Under old skipper Anthony Bell, Perpetual Loyal achieved this feat last year before going on to slash five hours off Wild Oats’ old race record with her new mark of one day 13 hours.
But while the last two winners of the Sydney to Hobart will be missing in action in the annual Big Boat Race on Tuesday, Wild Oats and Black Jack will both contest the annual curtain-raiser to the Sydney to Hobart.
Wild Oats X1, an eight-time line honours champion, and Black Jack, which won the Hobart race as Alfa Romeo in 2009, have been trading blows for months.
The latest foray for the two boats expected to dominate in pretty much anything expect strong wind conditions in the Hobart - the weather window for Black Jack and LDV Comanche - and a race on Saturday where Wild Oats pipped Black Jack by around three minutes.
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A fleet of around 100 yachts is set to contest the 73rd Sydney to Hobart which begins at 1pm on Boxing Day.
Veteran sailor Gordon Ingate will fire the start cannon and well-known skipper John Keelty the warning gun.