Wild Oats XI takes Audi Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race line honours

Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI, skippered by Mark Richards, took line honours in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s (CYCA) 384nm Audi Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race this morning at 07.11.27am, finishing the race in one day 18hr 11min 27sec to confirm she is still the fastest super maxi in Australia.

Win he may have, but the swords were drawn and Richards had to fight for every mile of the race though. Anthony Bell’s same-sized Investec Loyal (100ft) finished the race at 07.20.49am, just nine minutes 22secs behind Wild Oats XI, after leading the fleet off the Sydney Harbour start line and to South Head on Saturday. She was only overtaken when the pair turned left for Southport.

Richards admitted Investec Loyal had kept them honest throughout the race, pulling to within two nautical miles of Wild Oats XI in the later stages of the race: "It was good stuff, really close the whole way -- it reminds us we’re not infallible," he said.

"We were happy in breeze and not so good in the light stuff. Like everyone else, we parked up along the way; lots of parking chews away at the clock but that’s ocean racing.

"It was very close towards the end, and the most important thing was getting to the finish first. We made it so they (Investec Loyal) would have to sail around us to beat us," he said, adding: "We’re very happy with the modifications we made to the boat – the new daggerboard worked well."
Anthony Bell was thrilled with the way his yacht raced. "We’re in stage one of some modifications and this was our first big race since Hobart. We’ve altered the keel and got a new rig, so we didn’t want to press the rig too hard in our first race," he said.

Closing the gap on Wild Oats XI at around 3.00am this morning, Bell said: "Tactically we pushed a bit harder in the early hours and took a bit out of them. We made a couple of tactical errors in the race, but I think most could say the same."

The two yachts, with a cast of rock stars, will next face each other at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week, from 19-27 August, and both will have fairly much the same crews who have sailed the Audi Gold Coast Yacht Race.

Sixty four yachts remain at sea in the Audi Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race and the next one expected to cross the finish line sometime after 11.00am this morning is Stephen Ainsworth’s reigning Audi IRC Australian champion, Loki.

For full race results visit the official race website http://goldcoast.cyca.com.au or follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/asgcyr