2013 Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race

There are just two days to go until entries close for the 28th edition of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s annual Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race and the fleet currently stands at 51 yachts representing four states.

"I would like to encourage all yacht owners who may be considering racing north to enter their boat over the next 48 hours," Commodore Howard Piggott said. The Commodore will be competing in the race with his Beneteau First 40, Flying Cloud, with his Brisbane-based son George joining him in this first race of the CYCA’s 2013 Blue Water Pointscore Series.

Rod Jones, the two-time Australian IRC champion and one of four Queensland entrants, will bring his Welbourn 50 Audi Sunshine Coast to the start line. Built to the IOR rule in Gosford for original owner Warren Johns, and launched as Heaven Can Wait in 1989, it represented Australia with some great results.  

Jones will do battle with other 50 footers such as Bob Steel’s Rolex Sydney Hobart winning TP52 Quest from the host club, Wayne Keavy’s Elliott 52 Upshot, Darryl Hodgkinson’s Cookson 50 Victoire (formerly Jazz) and Robert Date’s RP52 Scarlet Runner.

Scarlet Runner won her division in her first Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race in 2009 and went on to take line honours and a new race record in the 2009 Cock of the Bay race (ORCV). Date also steered his yacht to win the Adelaide to Port Lincoln race in 2010 and took the line and overall double in 2011.

Date will have other Victorian support in the shape of Bruce Taylor and his IRC 40, Chutzpah, a regular in CYCA events for over 30 years. He has amassed an incredible 10 divisional wins in the Hobart race as well as a second and third overall.

Tasmania is represented by David Taylor with his Sydney 36 Pisces. With good local results, including winning the 2010 Tasport Series, which incorporates the Launceston to Hobart race, Beauty Point to Low Head dash, and the King of the Derwent, he also won the 2009 Launceston to Hobart yacht race.

This is the first time that Grant Wharington’s 100 foot Wild Thing (Qld) will line up against super maxi Wild Oats XI and Peter Millard and John Honan’s 98ft Lahana. With the Brisbane Gladstone race its only major offshore race since undergoing modifications, including a lengthening to 100 feet, competitors and spectators will be following Wharington’s progress on the water and the yacht tracker.

The Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race starts on Sydney Harbour at 1pm, Saturday July 27, off Nielsen Park at Vaucluse. The course takes the fleet down the harbour and out through Sydney Heads, before turning left towards the finish line off Main Beach at Southport, on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

Entry can be completed online until 1700 hours on Friday July 12 by logging on to: http://goldcoast.cyca.com.au/competitors/online-race-entry/