Australia’s most successful ocean racing supermaxi yacht, Wild Oats XI, will return to competition tomorrow as a starter in the 384 nautical mile Land Rover Sydney Gold Coast race. The 30-metre long, silver-hulled racer, which is owned by the Oatley family, made a dramatic exit from the Rolex Sydney Hobart race last December when the hydraulic mechanism controlling the canting keel failed. Wild Oats XI was leading the fleet mid-Bass Strait when the incident occurred. The cause for the keel failure was confirmed after the yacht limped back into Sydney Harbour and was lifted from the water. “We did exhaustive tests on every piece of the hydraulic keel mechanism to make sure this was a once only problem,” said the…

After a terrible start in the 72nd edition of the Rolex Sydney Hobart race, line honours favourite, Wild Oats XI, had clawed her way back to a narrow lead in the 88 yacht fleet late this afternoon. The latest indications from the race tracker indicated that the 30-metre long supermaxi, which is going for her ninth line honours in 12 starts in the classic, was holding a one nautical mile advantage on latitude over arch rivals Scallywag (Seng Huang Lee) and Perpetual LOYAL (Anthony Bell). However, Wild Oats XI held the advantage of sailing directly down the rhumb line (the shortest course) while her rivals were on a more easterly track. All three yachts were averaging between 23 and 25…

Santa looks destined to make a late delivery to the big guns in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race starting Boxing Day: a rapid and record-breaking downwind sleigh ride to Hobart. Forty-eight hours out from the start of the race on Sydney Harbour the weather forecast suggests that at least six hours could be lopped off the record time for the 628 nautical mile course. And, much to the delight of the crews aboard all 89 yachts in the fleet, the southerly change forecast for the first night will not be as strong or adverse as originally predicted. The outlook is for a 15-knot north-easterly wind for the start then near 30 knots from the same direction for the spinnaker…