HOBART, Australia: Overcoming an encounter with a 2-meter shark and sailing most of the race with flotsam stuck on its keel, Wild Oats XI won its fourth consecutive Sydney to Hobart yesterday, with skipper Mark Richards saying this year’s victory was the toughest “by a country mile.”
Richards steered the maxi across the finish line yesterday at Constitution Dock on the island state of Tasmania 1 day, 20 hours, 34 minutes, 14 seconds after leaving Sydney Harbor on Friday.
The time was about two hours slower than the record it set in 2005 for the 628-nautical mile (723-mile, 1,163-kilometer) race.
Another maxi, 2003 winner Skandia, led for much of Saturday across Bass Strait but finished second, 1 hour, 7 minutes behind Wild Oats.
Ichi Ban was third for the second year in a row, followed by ASM Shockwave 5, Limit and Black Jack.
On Saturday night, while dueling for the lead with Skandia, Wild Oats hit a shark which became entangled in its rudder.
Richards said the collision had a positive outcome — having to stop and reverse the yacht to clear the shark from the rudder also removed some debris from its keel that had slowed the boat since the start.
“It was a godsend in the end because the second we got him (the shark) off, the boat was backto its old self,” Richards said. “It might have been something off a spectator boat. But we just never stopped. When you are doing 20 to 25 knots all the time it’s a hard thing to work out what to actually do. So we were sort of waiting for the opportunity ...” Skandia skipper Grant Wharington said Skandia enjoyed the challenge of staying close to a superior Wild Oats.
“We did all we could to spring an upset but that thing is just so fast,” Wharington said. “We always knew that once we turned the corner and started reaching and going up wind they were going to be pretty quick. We knew we would have needed probably 10 miles on them at Tasman Island to even have a chance.”
It was the first time that any yacht has won four successive line honors in the event’s 64-year history. Last year, Wild Oats XI equaled the record of three in a row held by Morna in the 1940s.
Still to be decided was the handicap winner, which was won last year by American entry Rosebud after finishing fourth overall. Ragtime, the only American entry this year, was the only one of 11 international boats likely to finish in the top 20.
Three boats retired, including Georgia, a New Zealand-built Farr 52. It broke a rudder, took on water and sank. Its 14 crew were rescued by two passing race boats and taken safely to land by police launch late Friday.
