In a light east sou’easterly breeze, the Audi Hamilton Island Race Week IRC Racing and Performance Racing divisions today strutted their stuff over a 16 nautical mile course while backpackers, boaties and bona fide sailors were melding together at the famous Whitehaven Beach Party.
 
While the racing crews were concentrating on their performances, a steady procession of boats, including many from the six divisions enjoying their second lay day, motoring from Hamilton Island around to Whitehaven Beach for one of the largest social events of Race Week.
 
Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats X scored its sixth consecutive line honours victory, crossing the finish line off the award winning Whitehaven Beach three minutes ahead of Steven David’s Wild Joe.
 
On handicap, the Geoff Ross skippered Reichel/Pugh Yendys hammered another nail in its competitors’ coffins. Yendys was leading Wild Oats X by three points in the IRC Racing pointscore heading into today’s race and is now eight points clear of the larger Reichel/Pugh with three races remaining.
 
“It was a beautiful day’s sailing…just like the brochures,” a delighted Ross said this afternoon.
 
“The boat is going well in a variety of conditions. We are here with our Rolex Sydney Hobart crew and we are working hard,” added Ross.
 
Second on handicap in the light air race was Geoff Morgan and Andrew Banks’ You’re Hired and third was Michael Hiatt’s Melbourne based Cookson 50 Living Doll, one of two boats granted a reprieve after she and Wild Joe found themselves on the wrong side of the start line when the gun fired. As they sailed back through the start line, the whole fleet was recalled for a restart.
 
The Performance Racing division also had a general recall and then on the second attempt, a number of boats were individually recalled including the Volvo 60 George Gregan Foundation which took a while to respond to the race committee’s calls, skipper David Witt finally swinging the big boat around to re-start.

Given the amount of time they lost, they did well to finish fourth on handicap, which puts them second on the pointscore behind today’s divisional winner, Stephen Hunter’s Hick 31 Zutem, the current pointscore leader with two races remaining for this division. 
 
Geoff Lavis’ UBS Wild Thing was also recalled on the second start but used this to her advantage. By the time UBS Wild Thing restarted, the crew could pick out which of their competitors were sailing in the best wind pressure and they went on to finish second on handicap.
 
Tomorrow, the IRC Racing fleet will sail two windward/leeward races while the remaining divisions will sail another round the islands race starting in Dent Passage. The forecast is for S/SE winds at 15/25 knots.
 
Audi Hamilton Island Race Week will conclude on Saturday with the UBS South Molle/Daydream Island Race. – Lisa Ratcliff
 
Official race website https://www.hamiltonislandraceweek.com.au/