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It’s getting to be a habit. Yet another major Australian offshore race has ended with a controversial protest involving boats that placed first and second on handicap.
Keen followers of last weekend’s Sydney-Gold Coast race will have noticed the official results showed a tiny asterisk against the name of the winning yacht, Voltstar Yeah Baby (above). The * footnote confirmed that there had been a protest against the Class 40, but that the protest was dismissed.
What happened? As ever, it’s complicated and the facts are in dispute.
Rupert Henry, the owner/skipper of Mistral, the yacht that came second overall, believed that Yeah Baby had set a flying headsail during the race not listed on the boat’s IRC certificate.
Yeah Baby finished at 03:00. Mistral crossed at around 11:00am. Henry then asked the Race Committee to send a measurer to check Yeah Baby’s sail inventory for compliance.
Time now becomes critical.
SA has obtained a copy of the Protest Committee finding. It confirms the measurer didn’t come aboard Yeah Baby until 15:00 – 12 hours after the Class 40 had finished. The protest finding goes on to note that “the boat had been cleaned up, washed down and alterations made to the sail inventory”.
It is the nature of those “alterations” that was the crux of the protest. The measurer identified a Fractional Code 0 on the boat in addition to its declared sails. But the Committee concluded that “no evidence was presented to show that the Fractional Code 0 was on board or used during the race”. Protest dismissed.
It is understood that the owner of Yeah Baby attested that the extra sail had been put aboard after the race for the delivery.
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