Aust. boat leads

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33918, 11 August 1975, Page 3

Aust. boat leads

(N.Z. Press Association) PLYMOUTH. The Australian Admiral’s Cup boat Love and War surged through the opeh waters of the Atlantic to lead the 605-mile Fastnet race yesterday.

The Sydney to Hobart winner was reported in seventh position 4n the Lyme Bay area, about 60 miles from the start. She was about 15 minutes behind the pace-setting

Brazilian boat Wa Wa Too and was easily in front on corrected time. Bumblebee 111, the big Australian boat which won line honours in the first two cup races, was just astern of Wa Wa Too and was shortly expected to spear through to take up her usual frontrunning role.

New Zealand and Germany may be in conflict again at the end of the Fastnet, the fourth and final race of the series, which started on Saturday. Both Inca, the best performing New Zealand yacht to date, and Rubin, which is

owned and sailed by the German team captain, Hans Otto Schumann, were flying protest flags immediately after the start. # On Friday Rubin was disqualified from Wednesday’s third race, a 34-mile in-shore event, after a protest by ! another New Zealand boat, iGerontius. The disqualification ■brought Germany, the title--holders, down a place into i third position of 19 countries contesting this year’s (series. It will not be known whether Rubin and Inca are protesting against each other until the yachts complete the 609-mile race — probably about Wednesday. But the two boats were in proximity on the start line, and the incident or incidents which caused both to fly protest flags must have happened then. The Fastnet, one of the classic events of ocean racing, will finish at Plymouth. A westward start was j decided on, and the yachts : beat down the Solent into a fresh south-westerly breeze with the benefit of a fast spring tide.

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