Leading yachts surge into Bass Strait, Slade still hopeful of record

The three maxis leading the Rolex Sydney Hobart fleet entered Bass Strait around 4am this morning with Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI still in the lead.

At 0500hrs the Sydney maxi, which is aiming for a hat trick of line honors wins, held a 9-mile break on Mike Slade’s British maxi City Index Leopard, with Skandia another 6 miles astern. Nevertheless, with the wind now on the nose, Slade is hopeful he may yet wind the local race favorite in. Slade believes that, with the amount of ground the maxis covered in the first 10 hours of the race the record is still a possibility even though the front has slowed them down. At their present speed, City Index Leopard would expect to arrive in Hobart about an hour and a half too late to break the record, but if the breeze freshens during the day “we could easily gain that hour and a half.” Roger Sturgeon’s Farr STP 65 Rosebud is hanging onto fourth as the American boat prepares to enter Bass Strait, narrowly ahead of Matt Allen’s Ichi Ban in fifth.
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