For a super maxi yacht to take out a long race or a regatta pointscore double of line and handicap honours in IRC racing is still a somewhat rare achievement. However, New Zealand's newest super maxi, Neville Crichton's new 30-metre Alfa Romeo has a good chance of doing so at the Hamilton Island Hahn Premium Race Week.

Sailing in the sparkling waters and freshening tradewinds of the Whitsunday Islands, inside Queensland's internationally famous Great Barrier Reef, Alfa Romeo today scored her sixth successive line honours win and her third handicap win in the IRC class. One would expect the line honours result as, at 30-metres LOA,  Alfa Romeo is by the far the biggest boat in the fleet, with the internationally successful Wild Oats the next largest at 20-metres LOA.

What is pleasing for owner Crichton is that Alfa Romeo now heads the leader-board on corrected time results, today scoring a third and a first in two short windward/leeward races. The 98-footer has notched up corrected time results of 1-24-1-2-3-1 for 8 points after discarding the 24th place gained in a light long race. The well-sailed Wild Oats, skippered by Hamilton Island Resort owner and long-time yachting enthusiast Bob Oatley,  is second on the points table with 10 points, her placings having been 4-11-2-1-1-2. Third is Steven David's consistent 60-footer Wild Joe on 14 points, her placings so far being 3-6-3-3-2-3, while in fourth place is another newly launched boat,  Stephen Ainsworth's Loki on 18 points with another consistent scorecard of 2-4-4-4-5-4. Alfa Romeo, Wild Oats and Wild Joe are all Reichel/Pugh designs with canting keels (Alfa Romeo also has dual rudders) while Loki is a Reichel/Pugh with a conventional fixed bulb keel.

With three more races to sail, each of them longer races around islands in the Whitsunday Group noted for sudden changes in wind strength and direction, Alfa Romeo cannot afford another mediocre corrected time result, with her 24th place in the Lindeman Island Race currently her discard race.
 

To the disappointment of the smaller boats in the IRC class, this widely accepted handicap rule still seems to favour the bigger boats, with the four top placed on the leader-board ranging from 60-foot to 98-foot length overall.

In both short 12-nautical mile races today, sailed in fresh south-easterly tradewinds, the bigger boats dominated corrected time placings. Wild Oats won the morning race from Wild Joe and Alfa Romeo, with Alfa Romeo's sailing master/tactician Michael Coxon admitting "we did not have a good race" in the 20-22 knot breeze. However, a good start and more confident tacking and gybing of the lighter spinnaker in the 15 knot breeze afternoon race, saw Alfa Romeo sail an excellent race and win comfortably on corrected time from Wild Oats and Wild Joe.

For the second day Alfa Romeo's helmsman, owner Neville Crichton, and his two tacticians, Michael Coxon and Adrian Stead, had to "eyeball" the wind shifts and laylines, as the boat was without instruments, including wind speed and wind direction and even compasses. "It's a technical hitch which we hope will be fixed tomorrow," Coxon said. "We sailed badly in the morning race and were on the outside of big windshift to the left, but as the day went on we got more confident and we sailed a good race this afternoon, with a good start and faster tacks," Coxon said. "With the breeze slightly less this afternoon we were able to use the lighter running spinnaker which is easier to gybe."

Thursday sees the Whitehaven Beach Race, a short passage race that ends of the most beautiful beach in the Whitsunday Islands where crews are joined by family and friends for the traditional beach party.