Loki poised to take overall win

The 13-year-old race record in the Audi Sydney GJold Coast Race set by Brindabella has fallen to wild Oats XI.

As the clock ticked throughout last night and this morning, Stephen Ainsworth’s RP63, Loki was poised to take overall honours in the race.

Loki also finished inside the record and can lay claim to holding the record for a conventionally-ballasted yacht.

At 8.30 this morning, 19 yachts had finished the annual 384 nautical mile race to Main Beach, Southport. None of those remaining on the course have a realistic chance of overhauling Ainsworth’s yacht.

Nobody is likely to challenge Loki’s overall finish time of 01.16.44.47, nor those of Black Jack (Peter Harburg) and Wild Oats XI, respectively second and third overall at the present. The solid running conditions early on have paid dividends for the big boats. 

Ainsworth won the Audi Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race two years ago, and pulled up second last year. Now all the CYCA yachtsman can do is sit on the sidelines and wait for confirmation. 

Ragamuffin (Syd Fischer), 2011 winner Living Doll (Michael Hiatt), and Secret Mens Business 3.5 (Geoff Boettcher), fill out the next three places. Boettcher and his RP51 had not been to sea since December, but the absence has done them no harm.

Commenting on the race, Michael Hiatt said he felt the race suited them down to the ground: "I looked at the forecast and thought ‘This will be for us -- it’ll be a drag race -- there won’t be too many opportunities for anyone to make major gains’.

"I knew Will (navigator, Will Oxley) would put us in the right spot and we’d decided early that if we weren’t going to do well offshore, we’d come back in to the coast," he said.

From Rob Reynolds’ DK46, Exile this morning, navigator Julie Hodder reported an unsuccessful night at sea: "Well for us it has not been a good night. We got caught in a hole and underwent (with not a great deal of success) a whole lot of sail changes that put us four miles further behind most boats in just over an hour. Not our best race.

"Sailing-wise things could not be better. We have a beautiful, sunny day and are running in 11 knots of breeze towards Cook Island.

"We just had an enormous whale breach near us. We could see a couple swimming on the top of the sea, and I said ‘breach you whimp,’ and it flew out of the water and waved its fin at us," said Hodder, the commodore of Middle Harbour Yacht Club.

There have been six retirements from the race, with Brand X the latest, some of her crew suffering sea sickness. The last boat in the fleet is Biddy Hu II, the Beneteau 50 of Paul Lindemann from Victoria. She has a current finish time of approximately 11.15pm this evening, making this one of the fastest races in years.

Lindemann commented from his yacht this morning: "We’re doing 8-9 knots with the asymmetrical kite up in a 13 knot south-westerly. There’s a good running swell and we’ve just seen a whale -- up close!"

Follow the race action on http://goldcoast.cyca.com.au or on Twitter http://twitter.com/asgcyr