Forecast presents challenge in Brisbane to Gladstone race

Queensland’s premier blue water classic the 308 nautical mile Brisbane to Gladstone race will celebrate a major milestone when the start flag is lowered for the sixtieth ocean sailing challenge at 11 am on Good Friday.

This year’s race has attracted an impressive fleet of 65 yachts ranging from the defending line honours champion Matt Allen’s Ichi Ban from Sydney to the 42 year old eight time race winner Saltash 11 skippered by Ian Wright 0f Brisbane.

The fleet is stacked with some of Australia’s best offshore sailors who like the inaugural trailblazing crews in 1949 will face a demanding test of personal skill and endurance in a weather system that promises to be wet windy and tricky.

A change in the gradient wind controlled by a high pressure system in the Tasman Sea and a Low in the Coral Sea will have a strong bearing on determining a race record challenge and the overall race winner on corrected handicap.

Both Ichi Ban and the former record holder AAPT Grundig racing this year as Spirit of Queensland skippered by former Australian Sabot champion David Biggar from the Sunshine Coast have the proven speed to complete the course inside the present 20 hour 24 minute 50 second record set in 2004 by Grant Wharington’s super maxi Skandia.

However Ichi Ban and Spirit of Queensland who are expected to become involved in a speed sailing drag race to win the Gladstone Pacific Nickel line honours trophy will need a moderate to fresh spinnaker sailing South East wind to consistently power the sloops to an average speed of 15.10 knots and have their race log signed off before 7-24-50 on Saturday morning to set a new record. There was some variation in wind speed recorded by the coastal wind monitors yesterday which suggests all of the tacticians will need to revise their race strategy.

Wind at Lady Elliot Island had moderated from a fresh and frightening 32 knot South East breeze to a variable 17 knot East South East wind while the recorder at Sandy Cape Light registered a gentler 16 knot East North East breeze.

The complex nature of the coastal weather system indicates the fleet will experience light to moderate winds for the initial 42 nautical miles of racing in Moreton Bay before picking up the pace along the ocean beaches off the Sunshine Coast and Fraser Island.

This expected forecast is similar to Easter 2006 when Mike Balkin’s modified Farr 36 Corum crewed by a talented team of Mooloolaba sailors claimed a popular win.

Corum is again listed as a major contender with the Audi Australian IRC champions on the Rod Jones skippered Oceanburo, the defending champion Saltash II and the high performance Ray Roberts skippered Quantum Racing from Sydney.

All four radically different designed yachts have an outright winning chance but that will be determined by how well they sail during the more difficult dusk to dawn hours between Good Friday and Easter Saturday.

Based on the forecast the power sailing Sydney maxi chaser Ichi Ban should win line honours ahead of Spirit of Queensland and the Sydney yachts Quantum Racing and Wot Yot while Saltash II, Wistari, Oceanburo, Pagan, Corum,Wedgetail and Quantum Racing rate among the best to win on handicap.