Yacht and their crews sailing in tonight’s qualifying ocean race for the 60th anniversary Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race face galeforce headwinds and heavy seas off the New South Wales Central Coast, at least until Saturday morning.

Nearly 30 of the NSW yachts nominated for the Rolex Sydney Hobart will set sail at 8pm in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s 180 nautical mile race to Cabbage Tree Island, north of Port Stephens, and back to Sydney.

The race is one of several qualifiers for the Rolex Sydney Hobart, other qualifiers including last weekend’s Gosford to Lord Howe Island and Melbourne to Stanley races.

The Bureau of Meteorology late this afternoon issued a final gale warning for coastal and offshore waters north of Sydney, predicting northerly winds of 30-40 knots offshore.   Seas will be 3-4 metres offshore and scattered thunderstorms are also forecast.

Overnight, however, the winds are expected to ease to northerlies of 20-30 knots with seas abating to 2-3 metres.

Heading the Cabbage Island Race fleet, which is also a CYCA Blue Water Pointscore event, are George Snow’s Brindabella and the Volvo 60s, Andrew Short Marine (Andrew Short) and Seriously Ten (John Woodruff and Eric Robinson).

However, particular interest will centre on the clash between the two new Beneteau 47.7 rivals,  First National Real Estate,  skippered by Michael Spies, and David Mason’s Prime Time which has Neville Wittey aboard as tactician.

Spies skippered his previous boat,  the smaller  Beneteau 40.7 also named First National Real Estate, to an overall win in last year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Race while Wittey is an Olympic sailor and former World champion in one design classes.

Under the direction of Spies and Wittey,  both Beneteau production cruiser/racer yachts have been optimised for ocean racing under the IRC handicap category.

Both boats are expected to among the top contenders for IRC Overall honours in this year’s 60th Race to Hobart,  but some of their toughest competitors also will be racing to Cabbage Tree Island, including Matt Allen’s powerful Farr 52,  Ichi Ban, the current Australian IRC Offshore Champion.

Also racing tonight is Syd Fischer’s Ragamuffin, the original Wild Oats and IOR winner of the 1993 Sydney Hobart, with Howard Piggott on the helm, the new AFR Midnight Rambler, a Farr 40 skippered by Ed Psaltis, and 2003-2004 Blue Water Champion Nips N Tux (Howard de Torres).

Further information:   Peter Campbell –  02 9327 2461 or 0419 385 025, email – peter_campbell@bigpond.com