Apollo leads fleet in maxi battle

Press, 28 December 1985, Page 3

Apollo leads fleet in maxi battle

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney

The giant Australian sloop Apollo was last night powering towards Bass Strait at the head of the fleet in the AWA SydneyHobart race, in a thrilling maxi battle with a fellow New South Wales boat Ragamuffin. With the heavy southerlies that have battered the fleet for the last 20 hours dropping away and possibly going round to the east, the race for line honours is still anyone’s with only 10 nautical miles separating the first eight boats.

The winds last night had begun to moderate, but the change has come too late for 21 of the competitors who couldn’t stand the strain beating into the sharp, heavy seas and the wind gusting up to 35 knots.

Among the casualties was the British yacht Panda, dealing the UK’s hopes of holding on to its strong lead in the AWA Southern Cross Cup a near fatal blow. Highland Fling and Cifraline 3 must now finish well clear of the New Zealand A and B teams to have a chance of lifting the cup New Zealand won in 1983.

The task, though daunting, is not utterly hopeless—in 1977 New Zealand won the cup with just one entrant, Jenny H, skippered by Ray Haslar, who this year is at the helm of Switchblade.

Right up with the maxis is the New Zealand pocket maxi Starlight Express, while the Kiwi Southern Cross Cuppers Switchblade and Thunderbird are racing neck and neck just a halfmile apart in ninth and tenth positions, while Exa-

dor is three places further back. The other New Zealand pocket maxi Night Raider is twentieth, the Southern Cross Cup wonderboat Mad Max is twenty-first and Witchdoctor NZ is twentyeighth. The last New Zealand A boat Swuzzlebubble is forty-fifth on the water, and the last New Zealand B boat Barn Storm is sixtysecond. In the handicap positions the smaller boats were hogging the top places, led by the New South Wales team boat Sagacious, from the Australian team’s Drake’s Prayer, and the ■ English boat Highland Fling. Next came the New Zealander Exador, the chartered New Zealand boat, The Syndicate, sailing for Papua New Guinea, then the New 1 Zealanders Switchblade and Thunderbird seventh and eighth, while Mad Max was eleventh. Swuzzlebubble from New Zealand was twenty-eighth on handicap, Starlight Express forty-eighth, and Barn Storm was sixty-first. The other three New Zealanders in the race, Witchcraft NZ, Night Raider, and Bad Habits are seventieth, eighty-ninth and 106th on corrected time. From a Southern Cross Cup point of view, the big news for New Zealand comes from the adversity of the British. With Panda out of the race, her only contribution to the English total will be the 75 points she earned for starting in the Hobart.

The British were last evening 324 points clear of New Zealand B with New Zealand A again dropping back to third after the radio

“sked” had them much more highly rated and taking the fight to the British. The British, while surprising with the way they stayed right up on the pace during the heavy work that supposedly favours the New Zealanders, are the acknowledged kings of reaching and running in light airs. If the winds drop and swing, they could be in their element. The New Zealand B team of Mad Max, Thunderbird and Bam Storm have just a 103-point margin on the A team of Exador, Switchblade and Swuzzlebubble, with the big danger coming from the New South Wales team which is mounting a strong challenge through the performance of Sagacious which is leading on handicap, Another Concubine which is ninth, and Paladin which is 22nd.