Big guns eyeing Hobart victory

Winemaker Bob Oatley won't have things all his way with his record-breaking maxi yacht Wild Oats XI in this year's Rolex Sydney-Hobart race.

Englishman Mike Slade's maxi Leopard 3 (pictured), which won line honours in the Rolex Middle Sea Race at the weekend, beating 80 yachts over the 606 nautical mile Mediterranean course, is due here in early December. Slade hopes Leopard will  be the first yacht to win the world's blue water "treble" in the same calendar year.

Earlier this year Leopard took line honours in the first leg, the famous Fastnet Race off southern England.

Unlike most modern maxi yachts, Leopard is both wide (6.8 metres) and has a chine in the rear of the hull -- designed to improve its high-speed off-shore sailing. Like most modern maxis, Leopard has a canting keel but she also sports twin, retractable canards each side of the 47 metre mast. The crew can also flood tanks in the transom with six tonnes of seawater to lift the bow out of the water during fast downwind running under spinnaker.

Also in the Middle Sea fleet and coming to Australia is the New Zealand designed and built Maximus, a maxi yacht with a very unhappy Sydney-Hobart record.

Maximus had her first crack at the race in 2006 when the giant carbon fibre mast crashed to the deck not long after the start. Five crewmen aboard Charles St Clair and Bill Buckley's sloop were injured. In 2007, after a refit, the yacht suffered and even worse fate -- she didn't even make the start. A crack was discovered in her canting keel during her voyage from Auckland to Sydney and she was forced to withdraw.

Since then things have looked up for the boat.

Its racing record in Europe is good and it holds the speed record for circumnavigating the Isle of Wight. Sydney sailor Sean Langman, who had a crack at the absolute speed sailing record earlier this year, has chartered Maximus for the race.

But Oatley may not be denied. Wild Oats XI took her fourth consecutive line honours title in last year's race and skipper Mark Richards believes the yacht could complete the 628 nautical mile course to Hobart in under 24 hours, given the right conditions. Wild Oats is the current record holder with an elapsed time of 1 day 18 hours and 10 seconds set in her debut race in 2005.

Earlier this year Wild Oats was lengthened slightly and underwent extensive modifications.

The 65th Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race starts on Boxing Day, December 26. See the official Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race website for more details.