Another Big Canting Keel Boat Wins the Sydney Hobart

I'm sticking my neck out here but Wild Oats XI looks set to win the Hobart both as first to finish and on corrected time. This will be the third time in a row for this awesome Reichel-Pugh designed CBTF speed machine.
Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2007.. About the race
Address:http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/editorial.asp?key=527

 

Wild Oats Wins!

She blew away the competition:
Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2007.. Wild Oats XI makes it three in a row
Address:http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/news.asp?key=3658

 

Incredible amount of money spent on this yacht and the owner was not onboard. Still he is spending his money and spreading it around, thats a good thing.

 

Leopard3 is not looking very good at all is it? Farr dropping their standards? Americas cup lost, Volvo lost, Leopard slow...?

 

Leopard

This is Farr's first foray into the Super maxi field as best I can tell. The boat is NINE tons heavier and SEVEN(!) feet wider than Wild Oats XI. Instead of CBTF the boat uses twin hydraulically controlled daggerboards similar to the Volvo 70's. If I remember correctly Wild Oats XI's keel cants 52° and Leopards only 40° -like the VO 70's again.
One thing: Leopard was designed to be able to have a full interior installed when she's finished racing -which may come sooner as opposed to later.

 

Considering they had conditions that favored the lighter, narrower boat I would say being within 4 miles at the end wasn't too bad a result. That's a small windshift missed in these boats.

The Leopard3 was a compromise design from the outset, and the original plan was to be in the charter business in 2008. The owner and designer both said all along that the boat would be very different if it was a race boat only.

I wasn't aware any Farr design ever defended the America's Cup, so little chance they could have "lost" it.

Farr's Open 60s seem to be pretty darn fast, and, to correct some mis-information provided in this thread, a Farr design actually won this Sydney-Hobart Race Overall.

 

Leopard / 100' Super Maxis

From the November/December 2007 issue of Sailing World:
"To date Reichel-Pugh have had the supermaxi market sewn up, but this summer McConaghy's Boatyard,just north of Sydney,launched the first Farr Yacht Design offering in this rarefied category."
"For the Farr office the new Leopard maxi represents their first pure raceboat of this size since Larry Elison's Sayonara. Compared with the Reichel-Pugh offerings, the boat has marked differences-it is a "big" 100 footer with a 24' beam compared to 17' for Alfa Romeo 2 and Wild Oats, and is much heavier partly because of this.
Leopard weighs in at roughly 41 tons, as opposed to 32 for the other two boats"

 

Well, I don't know who wrote that for SW, but they didn't quite get it right. Here is the real info from the owner, designer, and Project Managers (all available well before the SW article was written):


Russ Bowler in Seahorse (Feb ‘07):

“Mike Slade’s new Leopard 3 is a rarity in this class, as its design brief was not just for major offshore events. If this were the case, it would be a very different design, likely narrower, lighter, and wholly different in deck and interior layout.”

Mike Slade in Seahorse (Feb ‘07):

“I’ve run all the Leopard programmes as a business,” says Slade, ‘so at the end of the day the numbers have to work.”



Yachting World (Jan ’07):

As with all his other yachts..the new yacht will have to meet the ‘ethos of the Leopard brand’, as Mike Slade puts it, and earn her keep as a very high performance, luxuriously appointed charter yacht. “We go racing to gain profile,” he explained.

The last Leopard..was very good at doing other things, like making money. She earned US$1.5million for Slade and chartered for an impressive 52 days in the Solent, highly successful by any standards.

..Although Mike Slade realizes he is unlikely to be able to live with the really hot boats inshore, he is sure he can deliver an exceptional experience for his many repeat customers and attract more who are looking for a high speed, high tech day out at one of the world’s top events…



Offshore Yachting Magazine (March ’07)

It’s no surprise then that Mike Slade’s Ocean Marine project management..were planning what they are billing as “the fastest charter yacht in the world”..because the yacht will be taking cruising charters as well as undertaking a race campaign, the hull needs to have more volume for accommodation than her dedicated racing peers.

The full cruising interior will not be fitted until 2008, after which she will take on chartering commitments in the Carribbean for the winter and race charters and corporate day sailing on the south coast of England for the summer.



So, even in her racing trim the boat is a compromise, not a "pure raceboat". It would have been interesting to see what might have happened if there was more big breeze on the nose. Probably the impeccable program run by the Oatley's would still have prevailed, but maybe those conditions might have been beneficial to the bigger boat.

Once again the "Lord of All things Foiling and Canting" presents questionable info to support his point-of-view.

 

Wild Oats didn't win on corrected time.

 

Hay I'm the pedantic prick around here, "Wild Oats" is a Queensland boat and did win!! . 01:21:24:32 13.8 knot average? . . . . . . . . . . LINE HONOURS & 5 trophys I think they said on TV

 

Nope. In fact, Oats finished 8th overall. Even the "substandard" Leopard beat them.

The Farr-designed STP 65 from California won the race overall, even with her fixed, non-canting keel.

"An American boat today won overall honours in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. It is only the third US boat to have won the race in its 63-year history.
It’s been 30 years since an American entry last won the Tattersall’s Cup, which is regarded as the most coveted sailing trophy in the southern hemisphere."



IRC Overall

1 Rosebud B Finished 7.7 1.509 03:09:32:14 7.7
Roger Sturgeon

2 Ragamuffin B Finished 7.6 1.33 03:10:53:47 7.6
Syd Fischer (37)

3 Quantum Racing A Finished 7.5 1.342 03:11:29:24 7.5
Ray Roberts (16)


4 Chutzpah C Finished 7.5 1.209 03:12:07:43 7.5
Bruce Taylor (26)

5 Ichi Ban A Finished 7.4 1.601 03:12:53:20 7.4
Matt Allen (18)

6 City Index Leopard A Finished 7.4 1.855 03:13:04:48 7.4
Mike Slade (2)


7 Yendys B Finished 7.3 1.377 03:13:40:05 7.3
Geoff Ross ( 12)

8 Wild Oats XI A Finished 7.3 1.903 03:14:24:47 7.3

 

Sydney-Hobart

Wild Oats XI was the first boat across the finish line. She sailed the course faster than any other boat. She won the race and did it for the third consecutive time-the only time since the 1940's any boat has done that.
Congratulations to the boats that placed well on corrected time, but there was only one boat that finished the race first.
Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2007.. Standings
Address:http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/standings_ext.asp?key=524

 

Who said "OVERALL"? I'm sure I said "LINE HONOURS"

 

Doug that's one of the most narrowminded posts i have ever read. Everybody who follows the Sydney to Hobart knows the biggest trophy for the race is the Tattersalls Cup-for the overall handicap winner. Its not so much of a big deal winning line honours when the only competition is a a first generation supermaxi that has been modified and is still hopelessly slow compared to Wild Oats, and a tank of a supermaxi that could only hope for heavy reaching conditions to beat Oats. Leopard is not faster than Oats and only strange weather and exceptional sailing by her crew made Leopard eat into Oat's lead towards the end.
You seem to share the view that much of the media shares..that the big boats is where the action is. It is much more of sailing accomplishment to finish the Sydney to Hobart in a 30-50 footer than it is in a 100'er, because you are on the water for so much longer, and you're not relying on hydraulic winches, and you normally arent concerned about breaking the boat too much.
Somebody has to win line honours, and it is an impressive feat, but honestly, if you think the handicap race isnt a big deal, then perhaps you should see how much you would enjoy the race if just Skandia, Wild Oats and Leopard raced from Sydney to Hobart. No other boats. That seems to be what your view of the race is.

 

2, my post was a direct response to post #11 where the overall race winner appeared to be relegated to 8th place. I made a point of congratulating those that did well on handicap but the interest in the Sydney-Hobart worldwide is, for the most part, in the battle of the Goliaths-you know that. What Wild Oats XI has done is remarkable and deserves great recogniton.
But then again so does everybody that competes in that race.