American super-yacht Comanche retook the lead from fellow US challenger Rambler in the Sydney to Hobart on Sunday, as more damaged boats retired from the gruelling race off Australia's east coast, officials said.
Strong winds knocked out some 20 percent of the field on Saturday and Sunday -- including defending champion and eight-time line honours winners Wild Oats XI -- whittling the 108-strong fleet that set sail from Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day down to 85.
The retirement of Wild Oats XI -- which holds the race record of one day, 18 hours, 23 minutes and 12 seconds set in 2012 -- left the race in the hands of US challengers Comanche and Rambler 88, with just two nautical miles separating the pair.
Comanche, owned by Netscape founder Jim Clark and wife Kristy Hinze and one of the four 100-foot supermaxis that entered the 628-nautical-mile (1,163-kilometre) blue water classic, led the race for line honours after bolting out of Sydney Harbour.
But the crew had to work hard to repair a damaged daggerboard and rudder before entering the Bass Strait chasing Rambler Sunday morning and resuming the lead, organisers the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA) said.
Rambler also suffered damage, to its starboard daggerboard, after hitting an unknown object and warned it was a "serious structural problem impeding our boat speed".
"We have no idea what we hit, we couldn't see it," Rambler's Australian navigator Andrew Cape said.
"It might have been marine life or flotsam, but it was a solid hit. It shook the boat.
"Our port tack performance has been badly affected, and it is all upwind to Tasman Island, so we have a lot of pain to come."
Chasing the two yachts are Australian contender Ragamuffin 100 and Italy's Maserati.
"We decided to punch on through. We think we can get to Hobart safely," Comanche's accomplished American skipper Ken Read said.
"I don't care if we limp over the line. We are going to finish this damned race."
It is just the second Sydney to Hobart for Comanche, which set a new 24-hour monohull record of 618.01 nautical miles in July, months after finishing runner-up in line honours at last year's contest.
