Kiwi maxi gets the upper hand

Peter Campbell reports on the penultimate race of Hahn Premium Hamilton Island Race Week

New Zealander Stewart Thwaites’ super maxi Konica Minolta today handed out a thrashing to her Australian arch-rival, Skandia, in the second last race of the Hahn Premium Race Week at Hamilton Island, off the far north coast of Queensland.

Konica Minolta, originally called Zana and close runner-up to Skandia in the 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, won the 30 nautical mile two-islands race by 5 minutes 35 seconds, inflicting her second win of Race Week over Skandia.

The two 98-footers are the largest racing yachts in Australasia, both being launched before last year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, in which Skandia took line honours by a mere 14 minutes at the end of the 628 nautical mile course.

Their first meeting since that long ocean race in early August was in the Sydney Gold Coast Race up the Australian East Coast in which Konica Minolta took line honours after Skandia retired to enable skipper Grant Wharington and several of his crew to compete in the Etchells World Championship at Mooloolaba on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

Their third encounter has been here at Hamilton Island Race Week, arguably Australia’s largest offshore racing regatta, with Skandia so winning five of their seven clashes, mostly by close margins.

When the New Zealand super maxi beat the Australian boat in the fourth race of Race Week at Hamilton Island, it was Skandia’s first defeat in 28 starts, a mixture of long and short ocean races.

Today’s race began in a 15 knot southerly breeze that backed to the south-east and then, after a brief rainstorm ended, eased away to only 6-8 knots.

In today’s race the Kiwi boat gained a significant advantage on the long beat to windward to Baynham Island, picking up stronger pressure offshore under rain clouds to round the island more than three minutes ahead of Skandia, which had sailed closer to the islands group and failed to lay the rounding island on its final tack.

Konica Minolta and her crew then capitalised on that break to double the lead on the long spinnaker downwind gybing leg to the leeward mark and on the second beat to windward to round Pentecost Island.

The two super maxis opened up their biggest lead over the rest of the fleet in the IRC handicap class, with Konica Minolta well placed to also win the race on corrected time.
Owner Stewart Thwaites plans to sailing his boat to Wellington to undergo significant changes before returning to Sydney for the Rolex Trophy regatta and the 60th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in December.

He and designer Brett Bakewell-White plan to follow the Australian design concept of Skandia in fitting the boat with a canting keel and canard forward rudder, as well as making other modifications to improve the boat’s performance.