Holiday Racing Wrap-up
The Bay’s Stan Honey may have added another impressive honor to his lengthy resume: elapsed-time honors in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. Honey navigated Anthony Bell’s Greg Elliot-designed 100-footer Investec Loyal to a 3m, 8s margin of victory over Bob Oatley’s R/P 100 Wild Oats XI, which has taken line honors five times in the 630-mile race. After a race-long battle between the two boats in what was a largely upwind contest, they matched each other jibe for jibe up the Derwent River to the finish in Hobart. But upon finishing, Investec Loyal was notified of a protest by the Race Committee that contends the winners received outside assistance in the form of information about Wild Oats XI‘s sail selection on the first morning of the race. According to Wild Oats skipper Mark Richards, “Those guys won on the water, we came second. That’s how we think about it. They deserve to win."
Close finishes seem to be all the rage in offshore yacht racing, as Iker Martínez’ Telefónica won the first segment of Leg Two of the Volvo Ocean Race by a scant 1m, 57s over Chris Nicholson’s Camper after a 24-hour match race to the finish. Ken Read’s Puma came in third, with Franck Cammas’ Groupama 4 and Ian Walker’s Abu Dhabi Racing in fourth and fifth respectively. All five of the remaining boats — Mike Sanderson’s Team Sanya is going to meet up with the fleet on Leg 3 — have been loaded aboard an armed transport ship bound for the Sharjah Coast in the Persian Gulf where they’ll be relaunched for a day’s sprint to the Leg Two finish.
As noted in the previous story, Loïck Peyron’s 131-ft Monster Tri Banque Populaire V has been off to the races over the past few days, increasing their lead over the ’10 record pace of Franck Cammas’ 105-ft tri Groupama 3. After having led by over 2,000 miles, the blue and white goliath had seen its margin slip to under 600 miles at one point in the Southern Ocean as her crew dodged icebergs and ridges. But with just 4,200 miles left to go, the 14 men have seen their lead increase to just over 1,000 miles. Although the North Atlantic looks a little unfavorable, their margin should be sufficient to lower the 48d, 7h, 44m time currently marking the Jules Verne record.