``The sailors don’t know their rules,’’ Three Peaks Race principal race officer Bob Silberberg said after most of the fleet re-started the 21st race unnecessarily this afternoon.
``The cannon wouldn’t light, but the flags are the signal – they always are in yacht racing. The canon is just for the crowd.’’
It was the first time an incident of that nature has happened in the race’s history.
Race veteran Nick Edmunds showed his experience to keep sailing despite the confusion, but was overtaken by defending champion Phil Marshall’s catamaran, Neil Buckby Motors Subaru, in the race to be first out of the Tamar River.
Marshall beat the fully-crewed monohull to the heads by about 500m, entering Bass Strait in a confused swell and 12-knot north-westerly.
BWR Multihulls showed it had something to prove this year, sailing out of the heads in third place, after being one of the last in 2008.
Dianne Barkas’ fully-crewed monohull Sullivans Cove Whisky was fourth turn east for Flinders Island. Racing multihull challenger Terry Travers came back from a disastrous start to be fifth out. He gave his main rival Marshall a lead of about a nautical mile but will hope to catch and pass Marshall in the 90nm to Flinders Island..
Another disastrous start was had by David Taylor’s monohull Pisces, which ran aground on the hazardous Shag Rock near Beauty Point. The Sydney 36 had to be laid over and towed off by a power boat.
The fleet is now on its way to Lady Barron on Flinders Island and should arrive in the early hours of Saturday morning.