admin posted on April 03, 2010 06:33
Black Jack lost her chance to claim a deserved place in Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race history when she sailed into unfavourable light winds south east of Breaksea Spit earlier today.
The Peter Harburg owned and Mark Bradford skippered super fast 20 m ocean racer seemed poised to break the 20 hour 24 minute 50 second race record set by the 30 m super maxi Skandia Wild Thing in 2004 when she sailed above the record average 15.08knots for the first 14 hours.
But unfortunately the wind lost intensity for a critical three hour period forcing her talented crew to accept that the record was safe for another year as they weathered Lady Elliot Island shortly before 3am.
This placed the record breaking target time of 7-24-50 am beyond reach with a further 95 nautical miles to sail
However despite sailing into a softer wind stream Black Jack still retained her commanding line honours lead while also holding the provisional lead on overall handicap.
She had power sailed away from the fleet to hold a runaway margin of 52 nautical miles over the smaller and equally well sailed Wedgetail which had surprisingly outpaced the Bruce Absolon skippered Nikon Spirit of the Maid in the spinnaker sailing conditions.
A win on handicap would be a deserved reward for the Black Jack crew but the result hung in the balance with the crew of the Bill Wild skippered 12 m Wedgetail expected to improve her claim later today.