race, and we also have to make our important sail and crew selection decisions in good time.’ One sail in the Comanche inventory that is particularly effective when in its reaching window is a special A3, which is too narrow to be recognised as a spinnaker but also too wide to be rated as a headsail in the ORR rating rule system used in Transpac. Comanche petitioned Transpac YC to allow them to use this sail nonetheless, and permission was granted but with the application of a significant rating penalty. Not interested in corrected time honours, this was acceptable to the Comanche team since their only interest is going as fast as possible regardless of rating. Well-known designer and Transpac technical chairman Alan Andrews said, ‘These large-girth headsails are now common in top- end racing, but not in general fleets like we have in Transpac. We want to keep a level playing field for the bulk of the fleet and not ignite an expensive sail development war shortly before the race. ‘That said, we have been historically supportive of innovation and speed, so we’d rather allow the fleet to use these sails with a significant additional rating assessment than ban them completely.’ This was good news for Comanche. ‘That A3 has proved to be an extremely versatile and fast sail for us,’ says Honey. ‘It’s more than likely to be on the boat when we head out.’ The array of foils and boards on Comanche will also be carefully evaluated for trade-offs in weight and performance through a ‘typical’ Transpac, which includes a small amount of beating, a little more reaching… and a lot of running. The decisions the team make on this and sail selection will hang on Stan’s weather forecasting and route modelling. So lots and lots of the best technology and the best sailing skills. But Transpac’s a long course that can be surprisingly complex. Even Comanche needs a little luck. Dobbs Davis
AUSTRALIA Commitment
Three successful six-day winter regattas in Australia’s far north, Queensland – Audi Hamilton Island Race Week, Airlie Beach Race Week and Sealink Magnetic Island Race Week (SMIRW) – might be considered ‘geographically impossible’ by yacht owners in the rest of the sailing world. Imagine a major regatta venue 1,000 miles from the yachting epicentre, the equivalent of having Cowes Week in Lisbon, Portugal.
The core of the triumvirate at Hamilton Island has been running for 33 years. Between them today, the three regattas, Airlie Beach before and Magnetic Island after, now have around 400 boats competing. So the attraction of the winter Northern series is obviously enough for owners and crews to make a major investment in time and money, many entrants sailing 2,000 miles there and back, some up to 6,000 miles (Cowes to Boston and back). Let’s now go back to their genesis.
James Cook sailed into Botany Bay, in April 1770, claimed this new southern land called Australia for Great Britain and then headed north. In due course, 980 nautical miles north, Cook’s Endeavour, sailing inside the Great Barrier Reef on Whit Sunday, reached a group of some 74 volcanic Islands he promptly named the Whit- sundays. But Endeavour had not been alone in her coastal passage, 30-40,000 humpback whales were following the same path north, close to the coast, inside the south-flowing Eastern Australian Current on their annual migration from their Antarctic feeding grounds to the Queensland tropics for the calving season. Fast forward another two centuries and in 1984 Hamilton Island, the second largest of the Whitsunday Islands, was being developed as an island resort. The first-ever sailing regatta was held there just after Easter the same year, the timing of the event being potentially unfortunate as it was during the Coral Sea cyclone season… While a new marina was in place, all the roads were still gravel. A post-cyclonic depression dumped heavy rain, the ‘roads’ soon turned to a muddy slush and the rafted boats were quickly covered in red-orange clay as crews stepped gingerly across them. But it was T-shirts, shorts and warm rain, the atmosphere was great and in the 33 years since it’s the same combination of venue and camaraderie that just keeps bringing sailors back in an annual Hamo migration – just like the whales.
GENNAKERS, CODES ZERO, ASYMMETRIC SPINNAKERS & STAYSAILS
Chosen
Chosen by Thomas Coville Ultim'
Thomas Coville Ultim
Proud to have contributed to the success
SEAHORSE 21
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