News

  • News
  • 2018
  • Records on line in PONANT Sydney Noumea Yacht Race

Records on line in PONANT Sydney Noumea Yacht Race

Records on line in PONANT Sydney Noumea Yacht Race

Records on line in PONANT Sydney Noumea Yacht Race

The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia has postponed the start of the club’s comeback PONANT Sydney Noumea Yacht Race to 9am Sunday June 3, 2018, due to forecasted wind and sea state. It is expected the 20-hour delay will give the complex dominant low pressure system in the Tasman Sea time to move east, and for the corresponding strong winds and sea state to abate.

“Safety is the number-one priority,” CYCA race committee member David Jordon reiterated to crews on Thursday evening at the official race briefing when he delivered the Bureau of Meteorology’s long-range forecast. 

When the crews navigate the still-vigorous conditions on Sunday (SW 15-25kts inshore and up to 30 knots offshore), there’s a good chance the longstanding course record set in 1991, two years before the race was parked for quarter of a century, will be broken by multiple entrants.

Marc Ryckmans, co-owner of one of the chief record contenders, GBP Yeah Baby, says their modelling now has the Welbourn 50 completing the 1,064-nautical-mile track across the Coral Sea in four to five days, rather than the earlier prediction of three-and-a-half to four days based on a Saturday start. Brindabella’s 1991 record is five days, 21 hours and 35 minutes.

“It looks like a fast and bumpy start. We’ll be running and broad reaching and the boat is pretty comfortable in those conditions. We’ll be cautious for the first 24 hours and the rest looks manageable enough,” Ryckmans added.

With the support of French cruise company PONANT, 22 yachts from Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and New Caledonia will depart Sydney Harbour and head in a north-easterly direction making for the French territory in the South Pacific.

All yachts in the PONANT Sydney Noumea Yacht Race can be tracked from the start off Nielsen Park.

PONANT Sydney Noumea Yacht Race website

#PONANTSydneyNoumea

PONANT Sydney Noumea Yacht Race fast facts:

Race start:                           Sunday June 3, 2018
Organising clubs:             Cruising Yacht Club of Australia and the Cercle Nautique Calédonien
Distance:                             1064 nautical miles
Race record:
                       Brindabella (1991) – 5 days 21 hours 35 minutes

By Lisa Ratcliff