The third race in the 2021/22 Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore doubled as the opener to the inaugural Income Asset Management Australian Maxi Championship for the super maxis and mini maxis.
A 10-15kt (gusting 18kt) SSW provided a fast start under kites and Christian Beck's Juan-K 100
LawConnect was quick to pull ahead of the Fully-Crewed fleet, David Griffith's JV62
Whisper, Seng Huang Lee's Dovell 100
SHK Scallywag 100 (skippered by David Witt) & Philip Turner's Reichel/Pugh 66
Alive (skippered by Duncan Hine) in pursuit.
The race to the Heads was a tactical one, with boats on both sides of the course searching for any advantages to be found from stronger puffs as high tide approached at 2003hrs.
The honours for first out the Heads was taken by
LawConnect, looking powerful as she pulled ahead of
Alive,
Scallywag and
Whisper into a choppy SE swell and building breeze.
Income Asset Management Australian Maxi Championship competitors
Moneypenny,
Willow,
URM and
No Limit were in close tow, with Wild Oats X also in the chasing pack.
Quentin Stewart's Infiniti 46R
Maverick 49 looked strong from the start, mixing it with the TP52s, which included Matt Allen's
Ichi Ban, the Fully-Crewed overall leader in the Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore, and the defending Blue Water Pointscore champion
Gweilo (Matt Donald & Chris Townsend).
Momentum swung in favour of some of the smaller boats overnight, with Shane Kearns' S&S 34
White Bay 6 Azzurro, Simon Kurts' S&S 47
Love & War, and Alex Seja's Sydney 36
Supernova in contention.
In the Two-Handed Division, Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore leader
Disko Trooper_Contender Sailcloth (Jules Hall/Jan Scholten), made another impressive start, with
Salt Shaker (Peter Franki/Drew Jones),
Min River (Jiang Lin/Jean-Charles Ledun),
Rum Rebellion (Shane Connelly/Graeme Dunlop) and
Crux (Carlos Aydos/Peter Grayson) among the favourites for overall honours.
Keep an eye on the fleet by following the
LIVE TRACKER.
You can also
watch a replay of the race start.