The fleet for this year’s Audi Hamilton Island Race Week has seen a remarkable 30 percent increase in the number of entries during the past two weeks, confirming expectations that more than 150 yachts, including Australia’s best, will be competing.

The fleet for this year’s Audi Hamilton Island Race Week has seen a remarkable 30 percent increase in the number of entries during the past two weeks, confirming expectations that more than 150 yachts, including Australia’s best, will be competing.

With another week of winter rains and then sun, Race Nine of the Audi Winter Series 2009 saw early rain showers clear just in time for the start of racing. The largest fleet of the Audi Winter Series to date of 148 yachts took to the start line. Racing commenced on time in 7-8 knots of westerly breeze with Course A being sailed.

After a very wet, rainy and cold week in Sydney, Race Eight of the Audi Winter Series 2009 turned out to be a perfect day’s sailing after a small delay. With 128 yachts taking to the water on a somewhat cloudy and overcast morning, racing was delayed for 40 minutes whilst the breeze filled in. Once the breeze filled in from the north east at 12-13 knots, racing got underway at 1205hrs for the Sydney 38 One Design and 1210hrs for Division A-K, sailing a full course on course B. 

After six races in the Audi Winter Series 2009, Race Seven for some was a chance to break a tie in the pointscore or to try to score extra points over their nearest rival. With one race drop having been applied to the provisional pointscore, some divisions only have one to three points separating the leader, whilst there are ties for first place or second place three divisions, which meant racing today was vital for many.