SYDNEY, 28 December 2004 — New Zealand super maxi Konica Minolta held a slender lead over Australian rival Skandia early on the second day of the 60th Sydney-Hobart race yesterday as the fleet sailed into forecast rough weather.
Stewart Thwaites’s Konica Minolta was just ahead of Skandia after a radio position report early on Monday as the leading boats approached the notoriously rough Bass Strait between the Australian mainland and the southern island state of Tasmania.
The two state-of-the-art 30 metre (98 feet) super maxis were engaged in a rerun of last year’s gripping 630 nautical mile bluewater classic.
Thwaites is desperate to reverse the result of the 2003 race, when Grant Wharington’s Skandia beat his boat, then known as Zana, by just 14 minutes by after more than two days at sea.
Skandia was about three miles ahead of Konica Minolta late on Monday but Thwaites’s boat edged ahead during the night as the lead boats surfed along in northeasterly winds that pushed them south at speeds of up to 21 knots.
Untried Australian maxi Nicorette, which led the fleet out of Sydney Harbour after Sunday’s start, was in third place about nine miles behind the leaders with Australian downwind flyer AAPT in fourth, race officials said.
Race officials said the leaders were well out in the Tasman Sea and were in good condition for the crossing of Bass Strait.
The leaders were sailing into a forecast southwesterly change with winds building to between 25 and 35 knots, making for a rough crossing of Bass Strait. Heavier conditions are forecast.
“At 25-30 knots the boats shouldn’t be having any trouble with winds like that, but later this afternoon the forecast is for much stronger winds, particularly as they get closer to the Tasmanian coast, so the real test is going to be a couple of hours from now I suspect,” race spokesman Jim Gale said.
On Friday, meteorologists warned of gale-force winds averaging between 40 and 50 knots and with gusts of up to 60 knots as well as huge seas averaging between six and nine metres (17-29 feet) when the change hits.
Those forecasts were modified slightly on Sunday.
Conditions were not expected to be as bad as those during the 1998 race, when six sailors died and five boats sank after 80 knot winds and mountainous seas hammered the fleet.
Sailors have also been warned to expect unseasonably cold conditions, with hail squalls possible. Smaller boats at the rear of the fleet will likely experience the worst of the weather.
A marine police emergency vessel is tracking the fleet for the first time because of the forecasts of rough weather. A fleet of 116 yachts started the race but six more retirements overnight has cut that number to 108.
This year’s fleet is the biggest in 10 years.
Fleet numbers had been well down after stringent and expensive new safety measures were imposed on competitors after the 1998 race.
The forecast southwesterly change means there is little chance of a challenge to the race record of one day 19 hours 48 minutes and two seconds, set in 1999 by Danish flyer Nokia.
