Sport - Hamo Racing Starts This Saturday

With more than 200 yachts scheduled to be competing at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week, starting this Saturday, series organisers have now nominated the two Australian yachts that will defend the South Pacific Cup team trophy against the New Zealand challengers.

In the IRC Grand Prix division, they have chosen the highly competitive Melbourne-based TP 52, Shogun (Rob Hanna), to go up against NZ’s Georgia (Jim Farmer). The former recently won the NSW IRC Offshore championship while the new Georgia is a development of the Audi Med Cup winning TP52, Emirates Team New Zealand. Australia’s second team yacht will be Bruce Absolon’s Hamilton Island-based Nikon Spirit of the Maid. She will be racing Kiwi Rob Bassett’s consistent 52-footer, Wired, in the Performance Racing class.

The Australian team won the South Pacific Cup against the Kiwis when it was first contested two years ago.

The broadest cross-section of keelboats — from tiny cruising yachts through to the ultimate Grand Prix level racers and superyachts — will be part of the 27th staging of Hamilton Island Race Week.

The scene at the tropical destination — which is in the middle of the magnificent Whitsunday Islands and on the fringe of the Great Barrier Reef — is already nothing short of spectacular, organiser said.

While more yachts enter Hamilton Harbour each hour and begin preparations for the week of racing, the surface of Dent Passage, immediately adjacent to Hamilton Island Yacht Club, is dominated by two stunning superyachts — the 50m ketch Perseus, and the new 58m sloop, Kokomo.

Hamilton Island Race Week’s naming rights sponsor, Audi, is Australia’s fastest growing German luxury carmaker, and the country’s largest supporter of yachting.

All details relating to on-water and onshore activities can be found on the website, at www.hamiltonislandraceweek.com.au

Photo caption: Wired (Rob Bassett) will be chasing the South Pacific Cup for New Zealand at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week 2010. (Photo: Andrea Francolini).