Spectators along the Richards Bay North Pier were delighted by the sights of brightly coloured spinnakers charging out the harbour on Saturday morning for the start of the TuziTekwini Ocean Race. 

This was the second edition of the race, and saw the 85 crew on 16 yachts barreling down the East Coast for nearly 90 nautical miles to Durban. 

Sailors were greeted with a light land breeze in the morning before the North Easterly filled in and built to 25 knots in the evening, giving the racers a down-wind blow worthy of writing home about. 

The near perfect conditions provided a fast pace that saw some yachts reach upwards of 17kt boatspeed. 

The epic battle between front runners CFM 2 from Durban and Cape Town’s Metric 4T kept many captivated right up until the last minute. 

Metric 4T’s owner and skipper, Dealtry Pickford said they were having a fantastic race until their last gybe which saw their enormous yellow kite wrap around their forestay, effectively removing them from contention.  

CFM as a result managed to clinch the Line Honours title with an elapsed time of 9h42m17s, corrected to 12h19m44s after handicapping. 

Multi-hull Line Honours was claimed by the only catamaran in the fleet, Dual Flyer. 

But it was the Cape Town based Ullman Racing team on the local Pacer 27 Sport Pink Things that claimed the top spot, taking the KZN Regional ORC Championship title with a corrected time of 11h10m51s, followed by another local Pacer, O Gosh II being raced by Damian Muller and crew from Stillbaai (12h0m10s) claiming the silver medal. 

Pink Things Skipper Morgan Evans reported after receiving his gold KZN SA Sailing medal that the event had been one for the books and rivaled any ocean race in the country. 

He further remarked that it had been so nice to be able to race “in shorts and a T-shirt, and without need for foulies”.