In light winds, lightweight racer Zig Zag launched its spinnaker and took and early lead on the first downwind leg.

Zig Zag was followed by Indian Pacific, which chose not to run a spinnaker, J Force, also without a spinnaker, ice Fire, with Cool Change closely following the much larger Woftam IV.

At the first dogleg, the skipper of Zig Zag elected to change from spinnaker to a code zero, while the crew on J Force hoisted a spinnaker.

J Force displaced Indian Pacific and moved into second place, and began to chase down Zig Zag.

The order behind those two yachts remained unchanged for the remainder of the race.

In the prevailing light winds, the remainder of the race saw J Force gradually gnaw away at the lead that Zig Zag had built up, before finally catching that yacht on the penultimate leg, to take line honours by over a minute, with Zig Zag second and Indian Pacific third.