Brisbane to Gladstone Race 2012

The 2012 Multihull Solutions Brisbane to Gladstone Race started on good Friday and saw the previous race record fall in the early hours of Saturday morning. The previous record was set back in 2004 by Raw Nerve (18 hours 55 minutes 9 seconds).

Team Australia

After a slow start coming out of Moreton Bay Sean Langman's ORMA 60 trimaran Team Australia found the breeze to open up and put the throttle down and at the halfway point Skipper Sean Langman and crew had a good hold on the record after completing the initial 154 nautical miles with an average speed above 22.5 knots.

The boat was sitting comfortably on 26-28kts with a top speed of 32.8kts. It takes a lot of skill and personal precision by the entire crew to achieve this, there were a high number of sail changes along the way but the workload diligently expressed by the crew, who had little time to enjoy the record breaking ride as they sailed at breakneck speed before their quest faced a serious challenge when the wind lost its intensity after they weathered Lady Elliot Island.

Team Australia's 8 person crew comprised of skipper Sean Langman, his 18 year old son Peter, female International match racer and multihull skipper Katie Spithill-Pellew as tactician and international sailors Josh Alexander, Mitch White & Grant Pellew and also Ben Cormack and Aaron H.

Peter & Sean Langman

Team Australia finally crossed the finish line off Gladstone’s Auckland Creek shortly before 3.30 am to complete the course in 16 hours 28 minutes 21 seconds, 2 hours 26 minutes 48 seconds ahead of the previous record.

The interesting measure of overall performance when Team Australia outpaced her high 1.500 handicap rating to also win the race outright by 26 minutes 57 seconds from the Peter Wilcox skippered Mojo .914 and the Bill Donnelly/Gary Saxby helmed Boss Racing .988

The mighty rocketship with fire works in the background

Final results:

Line Honours:
Team Australia (Sean Langman) 16-28-21
Boss Racing (Bill Donnelly / Gary Saxby ) 26-01-23
Mojo (Peter Wilcox) 27-31-30
Chill Pill (Wayne Bloomer) 29-51-51
Foxy (Shane Russell) 35-56-42
Attitude (Allan Larkin) 39-54-57
Renaissance (Mike Hodges) 41-21-02
Rushour (Drew Carruthers) 42-07-41
No Problem (Ray Hobbs) 42-44-06 9.

OMR:
Team Australia 24-32-31
Mojo 25-09-28
Boss Racing 25-42-39
Chill Pill 28-07-55
Foxy 31-33-35
Renaissance 32-20-10
Attitude 33-07-24
Rushour 34-07-25