| HOBART, 16:00 AEDT-(31-12-2004) Post-race hearings by the Race Committee and Protest Committee this afternoon have not changed placings for the two Rolex Sydney Hobart Race yachts involved in the hearings.
The Protest Committee granted Michael Spies two minutes redress as a result of confusion at the start on Boxing Day, which saw him return and restart with his Beneteau 44.7 First National Real Estate, although officially there were no individual recalls by the Race Committee.
The two minutes redress did not change First National Real Estate’s second placing in IRC Division C with first place going to Howard de Torres’s IMX 40, Nips-N-Tux on corrected time by a margin of just under 54 minutes.
The Race Committee penalised the Volvo 60 Seriously TEN one hour under Rule 30.5 of the Sailing Instructions after receiving a declaration from the boat giving reasons for missing a number of compulsory radio position reports. This penalty did not affect Seriously TEN’s first place in the Volvo 60 division nor its current provisional first Overall placing in the PHS division.
Seriously TEN, owned by John Woodruff and Eric Robinson, won the Volvo 60 trophy from Nokia and DHL-Getaway Sailing.
Under a prior agreement, Adagold Aviation, a sponsor of the Grand Soleil 46 getaway-sailing.com, which unfortunately retired from the race, flew the protest committee from Sydney to Hobart this morning on a BeechJet-400 aircraft to hear the protests.
Although heavily committed to the tsunami relief efforts, Adagold Aviation was honouring arrangements to support the CYCA in the event of a protest.
“Our aircrafts are transporting equipment and personnel to affected areas and soon we will be despatching heavy lifting freighters to Indonesia,” said Adagold’s business development executive Barry Graham this morning.
Adagold flew the protest committee back to Sydney this afternoon.
Meanwhile with 20 boats still at sea, only seven are expected to finish before midnight, leaving 13 boats celebrating the New Year in Storm Bay, along the Tasmanian East Coast and even back in Bass Strait where the last boat in the fleet,the 31-footer Gillawara owned by Canberra-based yachtsman David Kent is stil 285 nautical from Hobart, with an ETA of 3 January 2005.
The Melbourne yacht Dream Venture, skippered by Alexandra McKinnon, has broken her mast off Pt Hicks on the Victorian south-east on her back from Eden to Port Phillip. The skipper advised Race Control that everything was under control and the boat was motoring through Bass Strait. However, Race Committee chairman Tim Cox said the yacht's position would be monitored until it reached a safe port.
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