Wild Oats first home

Bob Oatley's brand new super maxi Rolex Sydney Hobart race and betters Nokia's record

Bob Oatley's Wild Oats XI, beat her Reichel Pugh-designed sistership Alfa Romeo to take line honours in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race just after 0800 this morning (2100GMT) breaking Nokia's 1999 record for the 628 mile course.

Wild Oats crossed the finish line at 10 seconds past 8 am this morning (2100GMT 27 Dec), taking 1 day 18 hours, 40 minutes and 10 seconds to complete the course. She has slashed 1 hour 7 minutes and 52 seconds hours off the record set by the Volvo Ocean 60 Nokia in 1999.

The finish proved a nailbiter when five miles from the finish line with a 15 mile lead over Neville Crichton's Alfa Romeo, they snapped a batten at the top of the mainsail when a runner caught on it . Without the batten the top of the mainsail was flogging and the crew fearing the sail would rip itself apart, were forced to drop it and continue under headsail alone. Despite this Wild Oats XI was still making 10 knots upwind. Fortunately this drama occurred as the new 98 footer had entered the Derwent River within sight of the finish line off Hobart and she was able to cover the final miles up the river surrounded by 50 spectator craft making around 12 knots as she finished in a fresh 15 knots northwesterly breeze.

The winning move for Wild Oats over Alfa Romeo came on the first night. Alfa Romeo headed east out to sea looking for extra breeze, but at around 0500 local time Wild Oats XI veered the other way towards the coast. It was a big call, and it paid off. Wild Oats not only found better pressure but was also closer to the rhumb line. Soon she had opened out a 12 mile lead over her sistership. Adrienne Cahalan said after the race that she couldn’t understand why the other boats didn’t follow their lead, “I think Alfa Romeo was looking for more pressure (wind) out to sea while we were looking for the favourable shift.”

"We had a good game plan, we stuck to it and it paid off big time. We woke up Tuesday morning and they were out of sight and it stayed that way for the rest of the race," commented skipper Mark Richards (below).



Throughout Tuesday the two boats steadily worked their way back into race record contention, with Alfa Romeo unable to run down her rival. By the end of the day Wild Oats XI had stretched her lead to 20 miles. “We knew if it was a downhill race we’d be hard to beat,” said Richards. “ Alfa Romeo was faster for the first 12 hours but once we got the spinnaker on we took off.” In flat water the yachts reached top speeds, with Wild Oats XI hitting 32 knots on Tuesday night. Richards described it as a “hairy” night with “lots of gybing and heavy air running. It kept everyone awake, that’s for sure.” The race record was looking in the bag. It all depended on whether Wild Oats XI would find enough breeze on the Derwent River this morning to get to Hobart before the 9:08 am record deadline.

The win for Wild Oats XI came despite her very late launch just weeks prior to the start. Richards attributed their success to their team. "We’ve had a lot of experience with these boats we planned this boat very well through its construction. We’ve got a fantastic crew to sail the boat and build the boat. And all that experience at the end of the day pays off. We had a virtually faultless race except for a few issues with the mainsail. So it was about having experienced people with us."

Breaking the batten was not the only drama. Earlier in the morning the boom vang had ripped off the mast as the crew was bringing down a spinnaker. "We hit three big sunfish at high speed, which was a bit of a shame for the sunfish. But the boys pulled off some pretty radical manoeuvres in heavy air running, which is pretty hairy stuff and we did it all perfectly and just coming into the Derwent here a runner caught one of the battens in the top of the mainsail and it just went bad. So it is out of your hands. It was lucky we were close enough to the finish line for it not to affect us to badly."

While taking more than an hour off Nokia's record, conditions for this year's race were relatively mild in comparison to 1999 when the Volvo Ocean 60 roared south in gale force tailwinds. Some are still surprised that even given this year's conditions the new Reichel Pugh boats weren't faster. "I would have thought that Wild Oats and Alfa would have cleaned out but they are not doing that," said Ross Field, navigator on board Stewart Thwaites maxi Konica Minolta earlier. "We were hoping before the start that we’d have a patch uphill because that is where we believed we would hold together and they would break. But that hasn’t happeed."

Owner Bob Oatley, who didn't sail with the boat but was there to greet the team when they arrived to the applause of Hobart spectators, has spent a long time trying to win this race. He couldn't take his eyes off the JJ Illingworth Trophy, the plaque detailing many of the great names of ocean racing. "A lot of these names on here are my friends," he said.

Just as last year when the newly-launched Nicorette won a hard battle to Hobart, Wild Oats XI was launched less than a month ago and it was a hard scramble to be ready for the Rolex Sydney Hobart. Alfa Romeo, on the other hand, had a four-month head start and Neville Crichton's timing for this race appeared to have been perfect. But if Wild Oats was late to the water, she was still a well-prepared campaign. This is Oatley's third canting-keel boat, so he is well used to the technology. "We had confidence that we would finish the boat on time," said Oatley. "It was delivered exactly on the date it was due. We didn't expect as many adjustments to be made after launch, and we didn't have as much time on the water as we'd have liked, but we're here. We did just five short races [in the lead-up to the Rolex Sydney Hobart], and that gave us a lot of the confidence in the boat."

The indications from the short inshore races at the Rolex Trophy in Sydney two weeks ago were that Alfa Romeo had the edge upwind, and that Wild Oats might be slightly quicker downwind. As Alfa's tactician, Michael Coxon pointed out: "Unfortunately for us, this was a downwind race. But that's not to say they're lucky. Wild Oats sailed very well."

While Wild Oats XI has taken line honours and the race record, it is still possible for them to take the 'triple', winning the race under IRC handicap as well. "I still think it is possible," said Richards. "I thought it was then and I think it is now. We’ll just have to see how the little boats go. They have a lot of breeze running and reaching, but they have got to get home in pretty touch conditions now, so we’ll have to see what happens."

Alfa Romeo finished 1 hours and 15 minutes after Wild Oats, just eight minutes outside of Nokia's old race record in a time of 1 days 19 hours 56 minutes and 31 seconds.

"We gave it our best shot - we always like to win," said owner Neville Crichton. "At the end of the day we got beaten by another boat that sailed well and we’ve got to go back and rethink it. We know where we got beaten and I think we beat them in seven out of seven races and they beat us once, but that was the important one."

Crichton acknowledges that they lost when Wild Oats went inshore at Green Point. "We made a bad calculation on the weather. We went offshore, the other boat went inshore at Green Point and that cost us the race at the end of the day. Then Wwe couldn’t pull it back. The rich got richer, they got out into the fresh breeze each time and they were into the breeze a little quicker than we were."