2013 Sydney Gold Coast race

Entries have officially closed for the annual Sydney to Gold Coast Yacht Race and, while numbers are down for this year, it should be an interesting race to follow with plenty of races within the main game.

A high calibre fleet of 50 will contend for the main trophy, awarded to the overall winner of the annual 384 nautical mile dash north to warmer waters.

This number is down on the 63 yachts that lined up for the 2012 and well short of the record 85 boats that contested the inaugural race in 1986.

Among the contenders for the overall win are Ed Psaltis, Bob Thomas and Michael Bencsik with their near two year-old Ker 40, Midnight Rambler. The trio won the 2009 race with a previous yacht, and with a proven offshore track record, should the weather favour the smaller yachts in the fleet, the trio will be hard to beat.

"We’re keen to better our divisional win from last year’s race -- we’re aiming for the overall win. We’re confident in the boat’s speed in both light and heavy conditions," said Bencsik who co-owns the yacht that finished second overall in the recent light-air Gosford Lord Howe Island Yacht Race. 

"We’re looking forward to renewing our rivalry against Occasional Coarse Language Too (Warwick Sherman’s Ker 43) and competing against Quest (Bob Steel’s 2008 Rolex Sydney Hobart overall winning TP52), the new Victoire (Darryl Hodgkinson’s Cookson 50 which was formerly Jazz) and Celestial (Sam Haynes’ Rogers 46).”

Meanwhile, Warwick Sherman, who has assembled a gun crew to sail OCL Too commented: “It’s a big call to follow on from our divisional win in the Hobart race. I’ve got no expectations.

“There’s some great talent in the field, and some unknowns, such as Steven Proud’s new Swish (a Kernan 44). There’ll be a lot of pressure on a lot of boats not to put a foot wrong,” he said.

“There’ll probably be a lot of testosterone on the start line – probably some pushing and shoving too – but we don’t want to get too silly early as there’s still 384 nautical miles to go,” Sherman chuckled.

One of the other relative unknowns is well-named Black Sheep, purchased earlier this year by the Sheppard brothers, Derek and Martin. The Beneteau 45 was previously known as Honeysuckle and this will be her first offshore race with the Sheppards.

In the 50 footers, Queenslander Bill Wild returned to ocean racing earlier this year after an 18 month break with his RP55 Wedgetail. Wild has upped the stakes adding Loki’s navigator Michael Bellingham and it’s boat manager, Darryl ‘Dags’ Senogles to the crew. Other big names aboard are Neil Pryde, the Hong Kong based yachtsman/designer and Queensland names Kevin Costin and Ian ‘Ox’ Davis.

Commenting on the entries, CYCA Commodore Howard Piggott said: "We’ve assembled a highly competitive fleet for this year’s Sydney Gold Coast yacht Race, proving its popularity as a winter escape and a feeder race to other northern regattas, such as Audi Hamilton Island Race Week. There will be a really interesting battle to see who’ll be crowned this year’s overall winner."

The yacht tacker system will allow family, friends and yachting enthusiasts to follow the race and their favourite yachts for its duration. Each yacht will be fitted with a Yellowbrick tracker that will obtain a position using the GPS satellite network, and then transmit the position back to Yellowbrick HQ using the Iridium satellite network.

MV Coast is the official spectator vessel for this race and tickets are still available so book your spot now by contacting Mark on 0458 888 830 or Kate 0458 888 831 or email: coasthc@me.com.

The Sydney to Gold Coast starts on Sydney Harbour at 1.00pm on Saturday July 27.