#rshyr – Ireland's boat in the Clipper Round-the-World Challenge, the 70ft Castro-designed Derry-Londonderry-Doire, is on target to win her 12-boat class in the Sydney-Hobart Race today writes WM Nixon.
Skippered by Sean McCarter of Lough Swilly Yacht Club, and with Garda Siochana member Conor O'Byrne as a Watch Leader, DLDD had been consolidating a lead which she established around the mid-point of the 628 mile offshore classic, and is now (10.30 hrs our time) racing through the Tasmanian night over the final 35 miles to the finish.
But McCarter and his crew are under no illusions that this last inshore leg across Storm Bay and up the Derwent Estuary to the finish off the Hobart waterfront can see hard-earned leads wiped out in a couple of hours. Even with a margin of 12 miles over the next boat, the going is tricky, for they know that until three hours ago they'd manage to stretch it out to nearly 14 miles.
The boats still at sea in this annual offshore classic had a bit of a pasting during the past 24 hours with winds up to gale force. Of the nine retirals, one was the much-fancied 55ft Wedgetail aboard which Adrienne Cahalan was sailing as navigator. Wedgetail was dismasted, but until then she'd been challenging another boat of Irish interest, Matt Allen's new Carkeek 60 Ichi Ban helmed by Gordon Maguire.
Although Ichi Ban was first to finish in Division 1, her handicap lead in that class was soon taken by one of the German entries, the Ker 51 Varuna (Jens Kellinghusen), and then she slipped to third as the remarkably low-rated Swan 82 Nikita (Tom Brewer) came up the Derwent in stately style to push Ichi Ban back to third in class, a position she'll probably retain.
Overall, boats around the 50ft mark fitted this challenging race's changing demands very neatly, and it looks as though the oveall winner will be the Cookson 50 Victoire. Owned by Sydney plastic surgeon Darryl Hodgkinson, this boat was formerly Chris Bull's Jazz. If her expected Hobart race success holds good, it will add yet further lustre to a brilliant and enduring design which already lists the overall win in the Fastnet and the RORC Caribbean 600 in her CV, plus of course the recent comprehensive victory by Adrian Lee's Cookson 50 Lee Overlay Partners in the Dubai-Muscat Race.
Of the larger boats which attracted so much attention before the race, the neck-and-neck finish between Karl Kwok's new 80ft Beau Geste and the two Volvo 70s, Giacomo (ex-Groupama) and Black Jack (ex-Telefonica) would have been even more exciting had it not happened in the dark, when one nav light is much the same as another.
Black Jack tacked across one minute and 11 seconds ahead of Beau Geste, which in turn was one minute and six seconds ahead of Giacomo. But thanks to her slightly lower rating on handicap, Giacomo (Jim Delegat, New Zealand) corrected ahead of the other two in Div 0, getting third place just ahead of line honours winner Wild Oats XI.
The First 40 Breakthrough being skippered by Barry Hurley of the Royal Irish YC has had her moments of glory, and at one stage in mid-race she was shown as third overall. Currently she still has 98 miles to sail, which puts her in 7th place in Division 3.