Brindabella keeps in touch with Nicorette

The battle at the front of the Sydney-Hobart race was between George Snow's 75-foot Brindabella and the 71-foot Nicorette of Ludde Ingvall as they headed down the New South Wales coast. They had crossed the starting line uneventfully with the 112 other yachts entered for the 630-mile annual classic.

Nicorette - and this is not the boat of that name which took the Transatlantic record earlier this year, but the smaller Swedish boat which won the 1995 Fastnet Race by 24 hours - is favoured with the wind aft of the beam and Brindabella with it on the nose. There have already been two weather fronts through the fleet, bringing with them southerly changes to the gradient north-easterly airstream. Each time that has happened, Brindabella has closed with Nicorette, which has led from two hours after the start.

It was a typical St Stephen's Day start in Sydney Harbour with the entire fleet ranged along the starting line, lengthened this year, from Steele Point to Taylor's Bay. Remarkably, not one of the 114 was early off the mark and the front runners were those who started and held in to the eastern shore of the harbour from Nielson Park to Watson's Bay, among them the previous year's race winner, George Gjergja's 47foot Ausmaid.

Inevitably, Brindalbella and Nicorette freed themselves from the unwelcome attention of the smaller boats which had restricted their early passage and began to stride away. Behind them was Warwick Miller's 66-foot Exile, one of the three boats in the China team which is leading in the Southern Cross Cup series.

Brindabella led by 37 seconds at each of the first two turning marks, one inside the Heads and the other just outside, where the yachts were able to bear away and set spinnakers for the long run south. Brindabella's was up and drawing in a twinkling and so too was Nicorette's, but it had failed to reach the masthead and there was some 10 feet of halyard still to go. There was a problem and Jonas Wackenhuth was hoisted for some acrobatic halyard changes while the sail still pulled.

Almost 100 feet above the deck, he had to re-clip his climbing harness onto the halyard attached to the spinnaker, then attach the halyard he had used to get there to the sail, free off the initial schackle and be lowered to the deck as the crew hoisted the sail home. It was far from an everyday task even for the talented bowman, Wackenhuth.

Nicorette was soon in the lead and last night as darkness fell she still had a mile in hand over Brindabella with Exile two miles further astern. Handicap calculation made Chris Packer, whose father Petere won the race in 1975 with Chris aboard, the leader with Starlight Express.

Well placed were Karl Kwock's Beau Geste, a Bruce Farr 49-footer and another of the China team, and Syd Fischer's 50-foot Raggamuffin, which was steered by Britain's Andy Beadsworth. Quest, the only British boat in this year's race, skippered by Mike Broughton, was also well up with the leaders.