High Octane One Designs

Three hundred and thirty five boats faced the starters gun at 9.30am this morning in the 34.3 nautical mile Audi Victoria Week Passage Race from Williamstown to Geelong, with Victorian yachtsman Michael Hiatt and his Farr 55 Living Doll getting away quickly from mid line, leaving the rest of the monohull fleet behind for the entire race to take line honours.

Hiatt crossed the Corio Bay finish line at 12.52.32, in the time of 3 hours 22 minutes 32 seconds, well outside the record set by Grant Wharington’s super maxi Skandia in 2006 of 1h 40min 7sec.

Hiatt now has to wait to see if he has won the double – line and handicap honours. “I think Secret Mens Business might just have got us,” Hiatt said this afternoon of Geoff Boettcher’s South Australian Reichel/Pugh 51 which finished at 13.005.15,closely followed by the John Williams/Jason Vanderslot skippered TP52 Calm (Vic) at 13.03.00, Rob Hanna’s TP52, Shogun (Vic) at 13.03.15 and Chris Dare’s Corby 49, Audi Centre Melbourne at 13.09.21.

Currently, Boettcher is looking strong for the overall win for the Lou Abrahams Trophy, with Living Doll second and Alan Woodward’s Reverie, a Beneteau First 45 in third.

Back on Living Doll, Hiatt said they were happy to get off the start line well. “At least we didn’t break the start like we did last year and nice to stay on top. We enjoyed the conditions; it was mostly in the 14-015 knot range but we got 28 knot gusts at times.”

A number of the big names were forced to re-start after jumping the gun early. Overall race favourite Scarlet Runner, a Reichel/Pugh 52 owned by Melbourne businessman Rob Date, fresh from her win in the Audi Docklands Invitational was one, along with Alan Whiteley’s TP52 Cougar (Vic),  XLR8, Ray Shaw’s Reichel/:Pugh 46 and Terra Firma, Nick Bartel’s Sydney 47.

A fresh south-westerly wind was forecast for the race, but as the yachts lined up to start, the breeze lightened off to around 7-10 knots and through the race shifted to the south at 15 knots with a few rain showers thrown in. Michael Hiatt reported from Port Arlington: “We were getting up to 20 knots at times.”

The start cannon to send the fleet on their way will be fired at 9.30am by Sir Rod Eddington, Chairman Victorian Major Events, with the five minute gun to be fired by Audi Victoria Week patron, John Bertrand AM.

Jock MacAdie and his son Hamish, top six finishers in the Audi King of the Docklands last evening, got off the line well with Shamrock, Tony Donnellan’s Reichel/Pugh. Both were still looking good in the early stages of the race.

The Passage Race is Race 1 of the Audi IRC Australian Championship for those yachts sailing in the Audi IRC Series.