Black Jack banking on vast race experience

Adrian Warren |

Skipper Mark Bradford expects vast crew experience will help Black Jack in the Sydney-Hobart race.
Skipper Mark Bradford expects vast crew experience will help Black Jack in the Sydney-Hobart race.

Black Jack skipper Mark Bradford is placing his faith in a vastly-experienced crew, as the supermaxi seeks to overcome a rocky preparation for the Sydney to Hobart race.

The boat didn’t get the chance to race against supermaxi rivals LawConnect and SHK Scallywag 100 in the inaugural Australian maxi championship earlier this month, as they temporarily went their separate ways after a crew member tested positive for COVID 19.

The program suffered a setback even before then when the boat’s mast broke in the Brisbane-Gladstone race back in April.

Black Jack, representing the Yacht Club de Monaco in this year’s race, has sailed just five times with her new mast after its delivery from New Zealand was delayed due to lockdowns in that country.

With no recent racing form she is something of an unknown quantity, though the boat took line honours in 2009 when named Alfa Romeo and finished third, second and fifth from 2017 to 2019 respectively.

One thing working in her favour is the experience of her crew, with 13 having sailed the race at least nine times.

That experience will serve them in good stead if the strong southerlies forecast for the first night hit the fleet.

“Our crew on paper is a standout crew in my opinion and that makes a big difference in protecting the asset and getting though heavy conditions,” Bradford  told AAP.

“There’s a couple of ways to run a sporting team, one is with youth and one is with experience.

“Its a really hard thing to measure and pick which way to go. We’re all critical of famous Australian sporting teams for maybe going with experience over youth, I know I certainly am.

“But in this forum and in the context of what we are doing here experience has really got a lot to do with it.

“It’s a pretty complicated boat and it’s a complicated bit of kit and then you really need to know how to get out of trouble and so I’ve gone for an experienced crew and I think that will be the difference this year.

“It’s just having a few parts within the boat that are new-ish like the mast and untested, that’s nerve-wracking, but in general I think we are pretty well prepared.

“Every time you build a component for this boat you make it better than its predecessor and so this (new mast) is a pretty nice bit of gear.”

Bradford expects LawConnect to head the fleet early on and hopes his boat can make up ground in more favourable light air conditions forecast for later in the race.

AAP