Apriori leads Tasman yacht race pack Into Mooloolaba

by Lindsay Wright on 14 Apr 2010
Trevor Hill sailed his 11.6m Farr designed Apriori across the 2010 Fitzroy Yachts Solo Tasman Challenge finish line at Mooloolaba at midnight (NZST) yesterday to take the first monohull home title.

Despite breaking his mainsail boom about 35km from the finish, Hill stormed across the line under jury rig, his hands held aloft in triumph.

The 2400km race had been a testing time for the young Brisbane skipper who had swapped pole position with Apriori’s similarly sized arch rivals several times. As the fleet approached the Australian coast and fatigue induced by nine days of hard ocean racing came into play, he was quick to take advantage of a building south easterly breeze and rode it to open out a lead on the rest of the pack as they began running hard towards the finish.

Second place getter, Jennifer Fitzgibbons in Soothsayer, was two hours and fifty eight minutes behind Hill. Two days ago the pair were within 20m of each other and it must have been frustrating for the Mooloolaba skipper to sit and watch Hill sail away to pip her at the post.

Steven Arms was next across the line in his 10.6m Chamberlin catamaran Nitro. Arms and a team of volunteer helpers built the high tech catamaran over three years in the north Taranaki township of Waitara and launched it in the muddy waters of the nearby river two months ago. But at 5:38am today(Wednesday) Nitro entered another river, the Mooloolah, to a rapturous welcome from family and friends. Arm’s cousin Bruce stayed long enough for a quick debrief, then got his own Chamberlin catamaran, Big Wave Rider, underway to greet home bound teen circumnavigator, Jessica Watson, at sea off south west Tasmania.

Island Time, a Farr Phase Four sail by Matt Paulin from Mana, was just 10 minutes behind Arms. Like Hill, he was quick to capitalize on the building breeze and rode it to recover from a position at the back of the pack to third monohull home.

Mephisto, sailed by Alan Yardley, also picked up the pace in the fresh conditions and romped across the line at 7:03am.

Further back Ian Lillie was forced to slow Island Girl down after a rigging failure and is expected to finish at around noon today (Wednesday).

Carl Harmer has opened up a big gap on the fleet tailenders and is expected to sail Strider across the finish line at about 7 am tomorrow and the last yacht, Trish Lewis’s Wishbone, still has about 570km to sail and isn’t expected in Mooloolaba until Friday morning.

The last yachts from the mid-fleet of the 2010 Fitzroy Yachts sponsored solo Tasman challenge fleet crossed the finish line at Mooloolaba midday yesterday.

Waitara sailor Steven Arms got a wake up call from his cousin Bruce, after his satellite tracking unit showed that his catamaran, Nitro, sailing close to the northern end of Bribie Island on a course that would put him ashore. Bruce Arms took a power catamaran from Mooloolaba and spoke to the 39 year old skipper who corrected his course to head for the finish line.

Meanwhile, Ian Lillie, who has been under a triple reefed mainsail for two days after a rigging failure, sailed his Farr 1220, Island Girl, over the line at 1:21pm.

The next boat to finish is likely to be Strider, sailed by Carl Harmer, which was 167km from the finish line last night.