Skandia Geelong Week - Day 2
by Rob Kothe 23 Jan 2004 10:01 GMT
Skandia in a post card
The perfect record continues for Grant Wharington’s supermaxi Skandia as she recorded her second and third wins in this series on Port Phillip today in the 2004 Skandia Geelong Week.
Since her October launch the super maxi has remained unchallenged and its clear she will record her 20th win in the series tomorrow.
Today a young British sailor, 26 year old Samantha Davies, who is very familiar with big boats, gave another perspective on these ocean giants. She’s raced a 110 footer, the fastest boat in the world, in fact, the catamaran Maiden, the former Club Med and Sam was onboard when Maiden sailed an amazing 694 miles in 24 hours.
Her impressions of Skandia the maxi, after another great day on the water ‘A really cool boat, really well laid out with great deck gear. She’s really easy to sail, mind you the crew was a big part of that, they are all class and made it simple.
The canting keel is great, it reminded me a lot of my little Mini-transat boat, a 21 footer, with a similar canting keel arrangement. With both boats, you can feel these boats really powering up.
The powered winches on Skandia mean that boat handling is easy, and everyone can just concentrate on sailing. I drove a little today, the helm is very responsive, adjustable for angle of heel.
Actually it was fun to watch it from the opposite perspective, yesterday I sailed Skandia Contribution, the Tasmanian campaigned Quetzacoatl, a 40 footer we saw Skandia sail past us at the start and she looked awesome.
Today, aboard the 98 footer Skandia, I could see how challenging it was for the hemsman to pick a spot on the startline. ‘Its tough to get a good start because of the speed differentials, the helmsman has to predict what is going to happen in 20 seconds time.’
It was just great to be out here with Skandia, it was like sailing on a post card today, perfect breeze, perfect wind, perfect temperature’
Tomorrow, Saturday morning January 24th, Premier Steve Bracks will fire the starting cannon from the Tall Ship Young Endeavour, for the 09.30am start of the Williamstown to Geelong race, a feature of Skandia Geelong Week.
The 2003 Sydney to Hobart line honours winner Skandia is expected to lead the massive 300-boat fleet away from the start line. Accompanied by tall ships and a large spectator fleet, Port Phillip will be witness to an Australia Day long weekend sailing spectacular.
Australia's super maxi Skandia is expected to be the first yacht to reach Geelong. Conditions will determine the race duration. The mono hull record for the 34 nm course stands at 2hrs 32 mins 13 seconds and is held by Australia Skandia Wild Thing.
First held in 1844, Royal Geelong Yacht Club's Skandia Geelong Week is Victoria's oldest sporting event and is part of Geelong's maritime heritage and proud waterfront history that started when Geelong was a working port for the Tall Ships, 160 years ago.
The climax of Australia's summer sailing program, Skandia Geelong Week is widely acknowledged as Australia's largest sailing event - 55 yacht races over five days. This year's event has attracted 432 yachts and over 3,500 sailors.
Skandia Geelong Week is a combination of the former Festival of Sail and the Geelong Waterfront Festival and it is truly a total entertainment package... the Melbourne Cup of the sailing world! An estimated 70,000 visitors will head for the waterfront precincts over the 2004 Australia Day long weekend.
The event has an extensive and diverse shore based program that includes 48 live performances on four waterfront stages, two aerobatic displays, two spectacular fireworks displays, street performers, buskers, art exhibition, sand sculptures, tall ships and more.
In many ways, the rapidly developing Geelong Week is the Cowes Week of the southern hemisphere. Skandia Cowes Week is the second largest participant sporting event in the UK. Australian sailors and yachting media have realised that with the Skandia sponsorship commitment, this event is set to become one of the world's leading sailing events.
The full results from today’s races will be available now www.skandiageelongweek.com