Wild Thing retires early due to rigging issues

Wild Thing 100 skipper Grant Wharington can’t remember the last time he was forced to retire during a Sydney to Hobart. Let alone so early into the race, with conditions supposed to favour the supermaxis such as his.

So when his crew had to repair a problem with the running backstay (rigging that supports the mast) at 3.30am on Saturday, it never occurred to Wharington that it could be an issue that would spell the end of his race.

“We got that fixed, but we just weren’t happy with the set-up and we kept breaking runner tails and we had some other little rigging issues as well,” Wharington said in a video message from the Tasman Sea.

“Conditions were pretty testing and we lost quite a lot of time in trying to fix those problems, so we decided it was prudent to pull out of the race and go back to Sydney. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be our year. I can’t remember the last time we had to pull out of the race.”

Wharington’s retirement headlined a long list of yachts forced to pull out over the race’s first 28 hours. Organisers had expected the retirements to pool overnight, but instead they were sprinkled evenly throughout the day and assigned to a host of different issues – rudders, engines, one to a fishing net and two to seasickness.

Tattersall Cup contenders URM Group and Moneypenny were both forced out with the former (citing hull damage) having been, at one point, in first place for the overall win. Meanwhile, Moneypenny lost a life raft, and an otherwise perfectly fit yacht was forced to retire as it no longer fulfilled race safety requirements.

By 5pm, 13 yachts had been forced to withdraw, while many soldiered on having sustained damage. LawConnect’s owner and skipper Christian Beck said a rough night contributed to wear and tear on board, and crucially, to ceding race leadership to Master Lock Comanche.

“We had problems last night,” Beck said. “We broke the mainsheet and that took a while to fix. Then we broke the halyard. The J1 came down twice.