Nicorette vs Shockwave, the first clash of the Titans today.

by Rob Kothe Sail-world.com on 6 Dec 2000 Clash of the Titans!

Early this afternoon on Sydney Harbour, there was a 'friendly' race, around the Wednesday twilight course with a number of Telstra Sydney to Hobart boats.

Amongst them were two of the Maxi's, Nicorette, the 80-foot water ballasted maxi from Sweden and Neville Crichton's unballasted 80-footer Shockwave.

In breezes of 14-18 knots, the contest started as a 'friendly', but as always racers are racers.

Glen Bourke, the new Cruising Yacht Club CEO was helming Shockwave and the crew were locals, with ring-ins like Rob Mundle on grinders, rather than the rock stars from Team New Zealand who will be crewing during the Boxing Day Classic.

Nicorette had most of her race crew and was being helmed by her skipper Ludde Ingvall.

The start was fairly even, however Shockwave, jumped away a little as the two boats reached down the harbour with number 3's and mainsail.

However Shockwave with about 8 less crew on the rail, than she would normally have surprised everyone by clearly being faster on the wind.

There was speculation about whether Nicorette was foxing, however Neville Crichton and crew were clearly pleased with the first two-sail outing. After getting the gun Neville explained that Shockwave still had not had a serious heavy weather hit-out and he was hoping they would find some 30+ breezes this weekend, so he could do some more boat testing.

To make sure his boat is as well prepared as possible for the Telstra Sydney to Hobart, Shockwave is a late Telstra Cup entry. The extended Wild Thing now 83-foot long, will not be competing officially in this regatta but will sail the last two days. This will be the first opportunity to gauge the relative speed of these two Line Honours contenders.