KEY POINTS:
SYDNEY - Line honours favourite Wild Oats XI made a flying start to the Sydney-to-Hobart race yesterday. The defending line and handicap honours winner and race record holder led the fleet of 78 through Sydney Heads.
The speedy maxi was unofficially timed at 11min 59sec as it went
through the heads, close to a minute quicker than it clocked last year.
New Zealand boat Maximus appeared to get off the quickest of the big boats but was slowed by sail problems.
Wild Oats XI was followed through the heads by the 2003 line honours winner and Victorian maxi Skandia, with Maximus next and then the two 21m craft ABN Amro and Ichi Ban.
Forecast rough weather means Wild Oats is unlikely to beat its record of 18 hours 40 minutes and 10 seconds set last year.
The fleet set off in south to southeasterly winds of around 20 knots.
Early in the race, Skandia and Wild Oats were right next to each other, but the latter quickly pulled away while the former opted to go further inshore.
Light winds prevented the yachts unfurling their spinnakers for the opening run out of Sydney Harbour and the conditions also preventing the collisions and rule infringements that have marred previous starts in the congested waterway.
Watched from coastline vantage points by hundreds of thousands of Sydneysiders and escorted by hundreds of spectator craft, the fleet enjoyed calm, sunny weather as the starter's gun fired.
The three supermaxis, the largest yachts in the race at 30m, are expected to dominate the race, with Wild Oats the bookies' favourite, followed by Maximus and Skandia.
Maximus co-skipper Charles St Clair Brown said the big yachts had to decide whether to hug the coastline and enjoy relatively flat conditions or risk heading offshore in search of stronger winds.
"The thing for us and the others is to keep these boats together whilst we handle some quite big seas," he said.
"These will be hard conditions for boats such as ours which will be doing 12-plus knots over these waves. We have to work hard to keep the boat intact and the big trade-off is the current south versus flatter water inshore."
Wild Oats skipper Mark Richards predicted that the three maxis would all reach very high speeds and said the battle for line honours was wide open. "None of us have any idea what these boats are going to go like in these conditions in all the new configurations, so it's pretty exciting. I think we're going to be in for a fantastic tussle," he said.
Wild Oats scored a treble last year, setting the record race time and winning line and handicap honours.
Wild Oats also won convincingly in a preliminary race on Sydney Harbour this month.
Swells of up to 4m are anticipated for the first 24 hours of the race, conditions which should allow the supermaxis to open a gap on the rest of the fleet.
- AFP