SYDNEY to Hobart favourites Wild Oats and Ragamuffin Loyal have emerged unscathed from their first night at sea.
At first light the Mark Richards skippered Wild Oats X1 was leading the fleet in the 68th edition of the Rolex Sydney to Hobart as she has done since the very start of the race, The Daily Telegraph reports.
Closely shadowing the five-time winner was Syd Fischer's Ragamuffin Loyal.
The pace of both yachts had lifted to around 13 knots and will continue to rise after early headwinds were replaced by fast running conditions as the pair raced towards Bass Strait.
Not a single yacht in the starting fleet of 66 retired overnight, an unusual statistic for the tough ocean race.
By later this morning the fleet stars are expected to be on or near record pace with a day of high speed sailing ahead of them.
Trailing the leaders this morning after an uneventful night was the 98-footer Lahana, the 66-Footer Black Jack, the 70-footer Ichi Ban and the 63-footer Loki.
Bringing up the near of the fleet was the 30-footer Maluka, the minnow of the fleet.
The yachts need to make it to Hobart by just after 7.49am tomorrow to better the race record.
This task looks difficult but not impossible with Wild Oats setting the one day record of 18 hours 40 min 10sec back in 2005.
Read more at The Daily Telegraph.
