Tollgate Islands Race - start Images from Bow Caddy Media
by Bow Caddy Media 18 Oct 00:14 BST
It was a wild start to the Audi Centre Sydney BWPS Tollgate Islands Race on Sydney Harbour last night.
The CYCA had postponed the race start to 7pm to avoid earlier thunderstorms, but as the start gun was fired the southerly that had whistled up the coast hit its peak gusts of 35-40 knots, whipping up white horses across the harbour.
Even with a three reefed mainsails and a J3, most of the fleet still smoked down the harbour throwing up spray. URM Group and Money Penny blasted side-by-side down the harbour from the start and Smuggler caught a massive bullet mid harbour and speared downwind in a cloud of spray.
Ron Epstein's Bacchanal braved a kite and was looking glamorous for a couple of minutes, ripping down the west channel, before performing a spectacular wipe-out that shredded the kite. She recovered quickly and was soon playing catch-up again.
It was an intense 45 minutes on the water for the Bow Caddy team, trying to capture imagery with water flying everywhere and the light rapidly fading to dark by the time the fleet had passed South Head.
Several yachts did not start, including Master Lock Comanche and there have been three retirements, including Seb Bohm's TP 52 Smuggler.
As of 2am Saturday morning URM Group is leading the fleet, just north of Jervis Bay. Bacchanal is currently leading on IRC overall.