Marine Widlife Threatened to Eliminate Fitness First Sting.

• NEWS
• 29 Dec, 2002 12:21:00 PM

Marine Widlife Threatened to Eliminate Fitness First Sting.

In 1993 when Fitness First Sting skipper Terry Mullins heard that Brindabella had hit a sun fish and been put out of the race he thought “how unlucky would that be. Your chances of hitting one must be tiny”.

In 1993 when Fitness First Sting skipper Terry Mullins heard that Brindabella had hit a sun fish and been put out of the race he thought “how unlucky would that be.  Your chances of hitting one must be tiny”. 

Maybe not so unlikely afterall! Sting hit two sunfish  on his way to Hobart this year, and then, off the Tasmanian coast a whale almost ended her race.

“I thought it was another sunfish at first,” Mullens said.  “I could see this big shadow to starboard and thought we could safely go past it, But it darted back at us and hit the keel and then the rudder.

“I was steering at the time and I felt this twang straight through the wheel.

“We were very concerned.  We were doing 16 knots.” When Mullens looked back over the stern he could see that what had hit them was a small whale.

The collision left the rudder fractured and bent out of shape.  Fearing they would lose it, the emergency steering was brought up on deck, but rather than nursing the boat to Hobart Mullens decided to continue racing.  “We are very passionate about winning this race.”  They were also very close to long standing rival Ragamuffin, and were determined they wouldn’t let Syd Fischer’s boat beat them across the line.

In the end they beat Ragamuffin by 17 minutes after 12 hours of exhilarating sailing, charging down waves at up to 20 knots.  “After you have a collision of that nature, when your surfing down a wave you’ve got in the back of your mind:  I hope the rudder doesn’t fall off, and if it does what do you do.”

Sting wasn’t the only boat to encounter whales and sunfish in this race.  Canon ruptured a water tank when a whale struck her five times, while Nicorette reported hitting a large shark and a sunfish on her way to Hobart.  Many of the crews said they had never seen so much marine life during a Hobart race before.