Wild Oats XI won the annual Big Boat Challenge in style on Tuesday, but skipper Mark Richards immediately labelled rival supermaxi Comanche as the line honours favourite for this year's Sydney to Hobart.
The eight-time Sydney to Hobart line honours winner made a flying start with Black Jack the only starter in the seven-boat fleet to stay in contact in 7-11km/h south-south easterly winds
Wild Oats XI completed the course on Sydney Harbour in 1hr 14min 16sec, 1min 15sec ahead of Black Jack, last year's winner.
InfoTrack was third (1:24.07) ahead of supermaxi Sung Hung Kai/Scallywag (1:27.05), which suffered damage to her A1 sail.
Defending Sydney to Hobart line honours champion Comanche didn't contest Tuesday's race but Richards is well aware of the threat it poses.
"There's no question that Comanche is the favourite for this year's Hobart race," Richards said.
"The thing's an absolute weapon, it's got double the righting movement of our boat.
"It's an extreme boat and if it's conditions are on, the thing is going to be a 100 miles in front of us, that's just the way it is."
Unlike the early stages of last year's Sydney to Hobart where Wild Oats XI was involved in an incident with Comanche which led to a post-race penalty and the loss of line honours, the supermaxi had no issues with any of her rivals on Tuesday.
"We were lucky enough to get a good start and put ourselves in the right position to take advantage of that," Richards said.
It wasn't a flawless crewing performance aboard veteran supermaxi, though the glitches did not affect the outcome.
"It may have looked slick from off the boat, but there's quite a few situations which weren't that slick on board," Richards said.
Black Jack occasionally bridged the gap during the race, though only briefly.
"Ricko (Richards) and the boys picked our pocket. We always enjoy racing the Oats guys, but today they did a great job and led from the start and all we could do is pick up the crumbs," said Black Jack skipper Mark Bradford.
The overall winner of Tuesday's race was 60-footer Winning Appliances, the smallest boat in the fleet.
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