| AUSTRALIA, BASS STRAIT 21:31 LOCAL TIME-(27-12-2003) After 18 hours of pounding into headwinds and choppy seas the strain is beginning to show in boats and their equipment, including third-placed Nicorette.
Sailing into 30-knot south westerlies across Bass Strait, the yacht has just reported that its forward canard, a retractable fin forward of her canting keel, has snapped off but they are continuing on towards Hobart.
“We were coming down off three metre waves when we heard the crash. We don’t know if there is any damage to the hull,” said skipper Ludde Ingvall.
Meanwhile race leader Skandia this afternoon had a close encounter with a sunfish that unfortunately was in the path of the Victorian 98-footer, which was doing 13 knots of boat speed at the time.
“The boat just stopped and the keel started going sideways,” was the report from Skandia, which, by that stage, had extended its lead enough to be able to drop all sails and assess the situation without Zana, which is currently two miles astern, capitalising on the incident.
The fresher breezes led to the first retirement this afternoon in this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.
Sydney yacht Dodo, a Sydney 38 skippered by Adrian Dunphy, advised race officials late this afternoon the yacht was withdrawing with mainsail damage and heading for Eden.
This leaves a fleet of 55 yachts racing, spread out over 190 miles from Sydney yacht Katinka to race leader Skandia, which is a third of the way across Bass Strait.
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