Ragamuffin leads after rough night

Press, 28 December 1988, Page 29

Ragamuffin leads after rough night

NZPA-Reuter Sydney Australia’s Ragamuffin was on course to take both line honours and the handicap title in the Sydney-Hobart yacht race yesterday after high winds and heavy seas forced 24 yachts to retire. A southerly front with winds up to 40 knots struck the 119-strong fleet on Monday afternoon, causing havoc. Several yachts were dismasted and three crewmen were taken to hospital for treatment of injuries. None was seriously injured, organisers said. The race leader, Windward Passage 2, was among boats that retired after its deck cracked near the stern because its 25-man crew could not control the speed in the turbulent seas.

"It was like driving a semitrailer off a second storey building. And there’s a limit to how many times you can do that with the same vehicle,” owner-skipper, Rod Muir, told journalists after his return to Sydney. Ragamuffin led by 35 nautical miles, ahead of Great News, the radical Australian

50-footer, as it entered Bass Strait. Seven nautical miles further back is Madeleine’s Daughter.

On corrected time Ragamuffin, skippered by Syd Fischer, led the 44ft Madeleine’s Daughter, whose skipper, Peter Kurts, won the race in 1974 and 1978 in Love and War.

Fischer, in his eighteenth race, has never won the ocean race although he is the only Australian to win the Fastnet race in Britain. Great News, which has steadily improved since the start on Monday, is third on corrected time and is reckoned to be the chief threat to Ragamuffin’s chances of becoming the sixth yacht to take line honours and the race title in the same year. Most of the fleet was experiencing light southeasterly breezes this afternoon, but another southerly, with winds of 20 to 25 knots, is expected to hit the area tonight.

Winds in Bass Strait are more westerly and the first boat home is expected to arrive tomorrow afternoon.