Melbourne skipper Martyn Riley is expected to endure a wet and windy ride on the small catamaran Raw to the Core when he defends his line honours trophy in the Multihull Yacht Club of Queensland Brisbane to Gladstone Race over the Easter weekend.

Normally Martyn Riley and his talented crew including Stuart Bloomfield would sail in protected comfort under the spray dodger of the race record holder Raw Nerve.

But the power sailing Raw Nerve which set the amazing record of 18 hours 55 minutes and 9 seconds with an anti-foul blistering 16.28 knot average in 2004 remains in a Melbourne boat yard with a shattered mast.

Raw Nerve was power sailing in 40 knot winds to another impressive line honours win in the Adelaide to Port Lincoln race when a rig turnbuckle snapped collapsing the expensive mast into the sea.

However while the ride on Raw Nerve would be more comfortable in terms of not being exposed to speed driven spray the crew can still expect to experience another speed sailing ride over the 308 nautical mile course with Raw to the Core laying further claim to her title as Australia’s fastest 9.24m ocean racing multihull.

The Raw Nerve crew are favoured to win the Allyacht Spars line honours trophy ahead of their Victorian rival APC Max (Tony Considine) and the identical match racing Raider One Design catamarans AYS Raider (Joel Berg) and Raider (Jamie Morris).

This one-design match race the first in the 44 year history of multihull ocean racing in Australia promises to develop into a tack for tack dog fight with the applied human related skills proving the difference between the two ‘clone cats’ at the finish.

Joel Berg is a very talented ocean racer and his crew of older brother Tim, Ben Kelly and Matt Homan will need to produce a superhuman performance to finish ahead of the equally impressive crew of Jamie Morris, Roger Overell, Michael Kelly and Jay Crisp.

Brisbane to Gladstone website