Sydney: American yacht Comanche won line honours in Australia’s gruelling Sydney to Hobart Monday, staging a stunning recovery from damage, which had nearly ended her race.
The 100-footer was the first to cross the finish line after one of the roughest races in recent years, with more than 30 boats retiring after bad weather struck on Saturday night.
“At 21.58pm today (1458 UAE), Jim Clark and Kristy Hinze-Clark’s Comanche claimed line honours in the 2015 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, completing the 628 nautical mile course in 2 days, 9 hours, 58 minutes and 30 seconds,” organisers said.
Comanche is the first American entry to take line honours since 1998.
The boat had sustained damage in punishing winds off the New South Wales coast on Saturday night which tore into the fleet, shredding sails, damaging rudders and hulls and breaking one yacht’s mast.
A savage southerly blasted the yachts, resulting in 32 of the 108 entries, which began the race from Sydney Harbour on Saturday pulling out of the journey down Australia’s east coast.
Among the casualties were two strong contenders for line honours — eight-time fastest finisher Wild Oats XI, forced back to Sydney after her mainsail ripped, and supermaxi Perpetual Loyal with rudder damage.
Comanche was among those damaged, hitting an unidentified submerged object which broke one of her twin rudders and a daggerboard.
Skipper Ken Read had initially considered retiring but “decided to punch on through” and running repairs were made to the boat.
“I don’t care if we limp over the line. We are going to finish this damned race,” he said.
Comanche finished runner-up for line honours to Wild Oats XI in her first Sydney to Hobart last year, and had been a hot favourite this year after setting a new 24-hour monohull record of 618.01 nautical miles in July.
Her biggest competition for line honours had been from fellow American yacht Rambler which also hit an object in the water on Saturday, sustaining similar damage.
“We have no idea what we hit, we couldn’t see it,” the yacht’s navigator Andrew Cape said.
“It might have been marine life or flotsam, but it was a solid hit. It shook the boat.”
But while Comanche kept extending her lead on Monday in good conditions, the 88-footer Rambler was slowed by a lack of breeze in the final stages of the race. She still has just under 50 nautical miles to complete.
In third position is Australian entry Ragamuffin 100, followed by the Giovanni Soldini-skippered Maserati, Ichi Ban and Chinese Whisper.
Sailors returning to Sydney on Sunday spoke of the terrifying conditions for this year’s race, with winds of up to 40 knots.
“It was like hitting a wall of water; hitting you in the face, seawater, rain water — you couldn’t tell,” Julia Cooney, on board Brindabella, told The Australian newspaper.
Ragamuffin 100 was revealed Monday as the latest of the supermaxis to be damaged, with the port daggerboard completely sheared off in the race organised by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia.
“We’ve had our fair share of problems but we’re still on track to get to Hobart and we haven’t given up,” sailing master David Witt said earlier Monday.
“We didn’t hit anything, we just dropped off a wave in the fresh stuff and loaded it up and snapped it off.”
The race record — set by Wild Oats XI in 2012 — is one day, 18 hours, 23 minutes and 12 seconds.
