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| RACE1 KER 11.3 WINS CLASS IN THE ROLEX SYDNEY TO HOBART 2008.
Full Race Report: Brett Filby, Navigator / Tactician Prior to the race, and given the choice, we would have peferred much more time afloat on the 11.3. We had had many miles and the 2005 Sydney to Hobart race on the previous Tow Truck, a Mumm 30. We felt that, with the Hobart Race getting near, making the 11.3 as close as possible to a perfect set-up for a long offshore race would be essential for any result.
We were committed to racing with 10 people and so early on we identified the need to sleep as many people as possible to windward down below. Adding an additional pipe-cot bunk was the first priority, allowing us now to sleep 4 comfortably. The race forecast for the last few days alternated between "perfect" to "really perfect", with Roger Badham, our weather guru, claiming the winner would come from the mid-sized boats in the 40 ft to 50 ft range. The large boats would run out of breeze close to the finish and the smaller, fast boats would maintain a downwind slide and carry the breeze to the finish. The decision for us on race day was which sails to take off as we cannot carry all of them under IRC. We left the decision about the Code Zero till last. We had only had a limited time racing to try it and find its best conditions, but the forecast seemed to suit spinnakers. The Zero stayed in Sydney. We had a good upwind start on the second line inside Sydney Harbour, and we were soon rounding the outside sea mark just behind the larger boats in our division. The disturbed water around the entry to the Heads made it tough going, with seemingly everything in Sydney that floats out on the Harbour wanting to get involved. We spent the afternoon running with the largest spinnaker we have, the A 2, with the game plan to sail out to sea to get the best out of the favourable wind and current. The evening progressed nicely, followed by near perfect conditions all night with the little Ker smoking along. There was a fresh, warm Northerly following breeze allowing us some enjoyable mid twenty top boat speeds. This is certainly where the boat seems to excel. With the seas not ideal for running, we constantly found ourselves all yelling like schoolgirls as we got the right combination of a squirt of breeze and a nice wave. Things just seemed perfect for this boat, with sensational running conditions continuing all through the 2nd day. Our game plan was just to go south as fast as possible and stay out of a curious northerly flowing eddy current between us and Tasmania. We had only really raced the boat once against our rivals and that was mostly upwind. So this was the first time to really compare our downwind speed against our similar sized rivals. The afternoon scheduled position reports had us inside, close to the rhumb line, and anywhere from 10 to 20 miles in front of them. So far so good. Our overall game plan was always to stay in current that was going to assist us. So in order to stick to our plan we needed to lower the A 2 spinnaker and sail a little higher on course with the jib top and staysail. Initially we were concerned that there was going to be a noticeable drop of speed, but how wrong we were, with the boat still blasting along constantly close to and above 20 knots. We were told the boats were also great fun reaching, but we didn’t think this good.
The night brought us a worrying time as the breeze faded and we spent most of the night sail changing in very light, variable breeze. There were lots of concerns on board about others out to sea from us, that we had worked so hard to stay in front of, having more breeze and sailing around us. The morning schedule saw us moving again, but, with no internet access out this far, we were terrified that we had been outsailed by our main yardstick, the well sailed Farr 40 AFR Midnight Rambler. But the garbled sked had them 20 plus miles behind and all other boats out to sea and behind even further back. Relief! The final run down the Tasmianian coast was a mixture of tight asymmetrical spinnaker or jib top, which we found to be very, very quick. The boat was wet most of the time, but nothing like our last Hobart ride, on the previous Tow Truck, a Mumm 30, and nobody on board complained about being a little damp at these speeds! The race had the feeling of being over when we reached Tasman Island at the entry to Storm Bay, only for our Scottish first-timer to be disappointed that we actually still had 40 miles to go. The downside was that for the first time in the race we found ourselves on the wind beating to the finish. The Bay is fed by a combination of rivers and estuaries that made the passage difficult, and very frustrating with the finish almost seeming to be in sight. We finally finished at around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, after leaving open water at 9am that morning. We reached the dock and, just like 3 years ago in the Mumm 30, we were the first boat allowed into Constitution Dock, receiving the cheers from friends and enthusiasts gathered around. We finished first in our large division and 30th over the line, not bad as there are only a handful of boats our size and smaller in the 100 strong fleet. More importantly we beat our friends on the modified Farr 40 home by 3 hours. The 11.3 has certainly proven to be a sensational purchase, and 2008 was also a good year to enter it in the Sydney to Hobart race.
"ROLEX SYDNEY HOBART: WILL THE TOW TRUCK FLY AGAIN?" http://www.sail-world.com/USA/Rolex-Sydney-Hobart:-Will-the-Tow-Truck-fly-again?/52198 |
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