sydney to hobart yacht race leaders

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Duel in the dark as three-boat race for Sydney to Hobart win looms on Weds morning

There’s a tight tussle for line honours in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race as Black Jack, LawConnect and SHK Scallywag headed toward a possible “neck and neck” finish on the River Derwent.

Across Tuesday SHK Scallywag had closed the gap in third place as further retirements cut the original fleet of 88 yachts to 52, with harsh conditions forcing withdrawals due to damage or minor crew injuries - most coming on the first day.

The three super maxis were vying for the top spot heading down Tasmania’s east coast with the possibility of the duel continuing right up to Hobart.

On Tuesday morning, Black Jack had regained a six nautical mile lead on LawConnect.

“They are neck and neck at the moment,” Cruising Yacht Club of Australia Commodore Noel Cornish told media in Hobart.

Light winds for most of Tuesday then saw the leaders slow down, often being within sight of each other. Some of the race stragglers may not finish until January 4.

A Wednesday morning finish, likely before sunset, was expected.

“We are looking forward to a good day, and to where we will end up this afternoon and evening,” said Black Jack navigator Alex Nolan.

“Everyone is very well on board. Everyone is very happy. We are pushing it very hard.” Weather is critical in the 628-nautical-mile (1,200-km) race down Australia’s east coast to Hobart, one of the world’s most challenging ocean events.

Six men died, five boats sank, and 55 sailors were rescued during the 1998 event when a deep depression exploded over the fleet in the Bass Strait.

But this year, organisers also faced the trials of a global pandemic, which already nixed last year’s edition -- cancelling the event for the first time since it began in 1945.

Before the start, four yachts were forced to retire, leaving 88 entrants at the starting line, including 17 two-handed crafts, which are allowed to take part for the first time.

It was a sharp reduction from the 157 boats that set out in 2019. Though the first yacht to reach the finishing line grabs most public attention, the main prize for sailors is regarded as the handicap honours, which take account of the size of the yachts.

RETIREMENTS (As of 7.30pm, December 27)

Alive - hull damage

Ariel - Mainsail damage

Blink - torn main sail

Chancellor - sail damage

Crystal Cutter - mainsail damage

Denali - damage to hull

Enchantress - broken forestay

Extasea - engine issues

Gweilo - Forestay damage

Huntress - mainsail damage

Kialoa II - rig damage

King Billy - rigging damage

Mako - damaged mainsail

Mille Sabords - torn mainsail

Minerva - mainsail damage

Moneypenny - broken headstay

Nautical Circle - rigging issues

No Limit - heading to Sydney

Oskana - broken forestay

Oz Design Patrice Six - engine issues

Philosopher - heading to Sydney

TSA Management - mainsail damage

URM - damaged mainsail

Wax Lyrical - equipment damage

White Noise - window damage

Zara - uknown.

Zen - injured crew

Eora - broken backstay

Hip-Nautic - damaged mainsail

Inukshuk - autopilot issues

Kayimai - engine issues

Hells Bells - engine issues

Maverick - rudder damage

Race record in sight for leaders in Sydney to Hobart yacht race

Andoo comanche is on track to reach the finish line on wednesday evening with a time that is more than two hours faster than the current race record of one day, nine hours, 15 minutes, 24 seconds..

Andoo Comanche is on track to potentially set a new record. The time to beat is one day, nine hours, 15 minutes, 24 seconds. Source: AAP / Bianca De Marchi

• In the first few minutes of the race, boats nearly collided.
• The first vessel to retire was Avalanche, a couple of hours into the race.
• There is the potential for the race record to be broken with the favourable wind conditions.

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Dramatic start to Sydney to Hobart yacht race with close calls and wild weather

• Fleet sets off on Boxing Day in 78th edition of bluewater classic
• Andoo Comanche takes lead with eye on back-to-back line honours

Line honours favourite Andoo Comanche has taken the lead in the Sydney to Hobart after a dramatic start to the revered yacht race.

Comanche, the 2022 line honours winner, was travelling 28 miles off the coast of Port Kembla, south of Wollongong, when she overtook LawConnect roughly three-and-a-half hours into the race.

LawConnect, last year’s runner-up and a fellow 100-foot supermaxi, had taken an early lead out of the Sydney Heads, and later remained in hot pursuit of leader Comanche as they travelled at roughly 19 knots in northeasterly winds.

The two frontrunners have opened up a gap on third-placed supermaxi SHK Scallywag, which was about four miles behind Comanche when she passed LawConnect.

In-form 72-footer URM Group, along with Moneypenny and 2018 overall winner Alive – all contenders for handicap honours – appeared best-placed of the smaller boats.

Four hours into the race, the fleet remained at 103 boats – the same number that crossed the start line in Sydney Harbour.

Scallywag had earlier completed a 720-degree penalty turn in a bid to avoid a possible time sanction.

Accusing Scallywag of tacking too close, Comanche’s crew could be heard on broadcast coverage yelling to their rivals before formally flying a red protest flag.

The boats appeared to come within metres of each other.

The fact the incident had taken place in Sydney Harbour meant Scallywag had only a limited distance in which to complete the penalty turns, or risk receiving a time sanction on arrival in Hobart.

In 2017, Wild Oats XI opted not to respond to a protest from Comanche early in the race and a subsequent one-hour time penalty cost her a line honours victory.

Race officials confirmed Scallywag completed the turn off the coast of Bondi Beach.

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After a heavy storm cleared just before the 1pm starting gun, LawConnect led the way across the line then made the best of a change in the wind to pass the heads first.

But when a furling line snapped after LawConnect passed the first marker out of the Sydney Heads, she turned towards the spectator fleet in an attempt to correct the issue. The furling line issue has since been fixed.

The fleet is expected to encounter stormy conditions south of Jervis Bay on the NSW south coast.

Sudden and erratic wind changes, hail, rain and reduced visibility are all on the cards across the first two days of racing.

Easterly winds as strong as 35 knots are forecast for the far south coast of NSW on the night of Boxing Day and could impact the bigger boats in the fleet.

Winds are forecast to remain strong across the Bass Strait and southeast Tasmania on the morning of December 28, with storms a chance to continue affecting smaller boats.

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Last Sydney to Hobart yacht arrives with 18 minutes left of 2022

A ny other day, they would have slipped quietly into Constitution Dock. But when 70-year-old Kathy Veel and 62-year-old Bridget Canham crossed the Sydney to Hobart finish line - the last of the fleet to do so - at 11.42pm on New Year’s Eve, it was as if they’d heralded the early arrival of 2023.

A crowd in the thousands who had packed out the Hobart shoreline to ring in the new year chanted “Currawong, Currawong!” as the two-hander made its way past the packed-out Taste of Summer festival and around Constitution Dock.

Cheers came from the water, too, where boats had lined up to greet the nine-metre yacht as it pushed up the River Derwent.

After a lap of honour around the thrilled spectators, interviews on the boat, and the well-deserved popping of a giant bottle of champagne: the fireworks. Veel and Canham watched from the 1973 vessel that had carried them south.

You couldn’t have written a better ending to a story that stretched five days at sea, 630 nautical miles, and a day of waiting in Eden as they waited for bad weather in Bass Strait to pass.

“You wouldn’t believe the stops we pulled to get this happening,” said Canham. “The biggest challenge we had was getting here before New Year’s Eve,” she said. “We’ve been working our butts off to get here. And it’s paid off.”

Veel said the experience was “unbelievable”. “[It was like] nothing I’ve ever had ... in my whole life, she said. “When you heard people going, ‘Curr-a-wong!’, I thought, ‘What?!’

“I’m really proud of what we’ve done.”

The sailors described the weather conditions down the coast as “brilliant”.

“The boat behaved so well, it was just magic,” said Canham, a retired nurse.

The sailors are among the oldest to compete in the Sydney to Hobart race, and certainly the oldest in the race’s new two-handed fleet section. But Veel, a retired teacher now living in Bullabarra, near Katoomba, said they didn’t want to be defined by their age - nor their sex.

“It’s not, to be honest, how we think of ourselves,” said Veel in the lead-up to the race. “We’re sailors who happen to be women rather than women who sail.

Veel purchased the boat last year, and ran a GoFundMe page to raise financial support so the pair could purchase the necessary supplies to enter the race.

In 2021, Veel was named Blue Mountains Volunteer of the Year for her work with the not-for-profit sailing-based Making Waves Foundation.

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LCE Old School is sailed consistently well - Andrea Francolini, RPAYC pic

Whisper is among the line and overall contenders - Andrea Francolini, RPAYC pic

Post start last year - Andrea Francolini, RPAYC pic

Race is on to win 2024 Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Yacht Race

Over 30 boats will be on the start line for the 2024 Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Yacht Race this Friday when monohulls, a multihull and two-handed entries will share the start line off Barrenjoey Headland for the 1pm start.  

Respected sailor, Theresa Michell, has joined forces with Paul Beath and his J/99, Verite, for their first major two-handed race together. Newcomers to the Pittwater Coffs, Beath did the 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart in two-handed mode with another co-skipper. He and Michell’s first two-handed training session was a four-day return trip from Hobart.

“It was all upwind. Not particularly pleasant,” Beath remembered. “One of the reasons she is doing this race with me is because she sailed with me fully crewed in the Sydney Gold Coast race and the rest of the Blue Water Pointscore last year and we get on well.

“And this race is at a nice time of year,” the Novocastrian said of the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club’s (RPAYC) 226 nautical mile race.

Although she halted racing at the end of the 1990s to raise a family, Michell’s credentials are outstanding in both two-handed and fully-crewed sailing, as a skipper, navigator and crew.

She contested the 5500 nautical mile two-handed Melbourne to Osaka race in 1999 on an Adams 10 that she also skippered in the 1998 Double-Handed Trans-Tasman Challenge from Sydney to New Plymouth in New Zealand. She has sailed on the international scene, done Sydney Hobarts and sailed an Olympic class dinghy.

“This is a new team in a new race and we think it’s a good distance. We’ll get our systems together and get organised,” Beath commented.

“It will be a demanding race because of the currents and fluctuating conditions.”

The pair are expected to be competitive against all-comers, including other two-handed entries such as Chris O’Neill, who returns with Blue Planet after finishing the race seventh overall last year.

“We also won PHS and were second in ORC – and these results were exactly the same in the two-handed division,” he said.

This time he will be co-skippered by Tom Johnston, who helped him to sixth in the two-handed division of the 2023 Sydney Hobart.

“It’s a fun race and a good location in Coffs, it’s not too strenuous and importantly, there’s been sufficient time between this race and the Sydney Hobart – I’ve forgotten all the pain,” O’Neill said wryly.

Among the latest fully crewed entries for the 38 th  ‘Pittwater to Coffs’ is David Griffith’s record breaking JV62 Whisper, which will likely battle Geoff Hill’s Santa Cruz 72, Antipodes, for line honours. Whisper is also a favourite for the overall win, but due to the many weather vagaries at this time of year, the race really is wide open in all classifications.

On his quarry, Whisper’s owner says: “With her long waterline length, if Antipodes gets reaching conditions, she is quick, she will take off. We’re in pretty good shape though and the boat’s in perfect order.”

Griffith says his crew will also hold them in good stead. Among them are Rear Admiral Lee Goddard, Michael Coxon, Dougie McGain, Michael Fountain and Brett Van Munster. 

“Either way, it’s a wonderful race and the Alfreds do a great job,” Griffith said. “Everyone loves a destination race and Coffs Harbour is a great destination with lots to do.”

Others chasing overall glory are regular DK46 rivals Khaleesi (Sandy Farquharson/Rob Aldis) and LCE Old School Racing (Mark Griffith). At the Nautilus Marine Insurance Sydney Harbour Regatta in early March, the latter placed second in the Open division on home turf, while Griffith’s boat, from RPAYC, was second. Another DK46, Nine Dragons, was declared the winner. 

Pierre Gal has entered the Asia catamaran Stealth 12.60 named Fez. The French expat, who lives on the NSW north coast, is a name locally and internationally, competing in the America’s Cup for France and has Australian victories too.

Incidentally, Gal won Division 4 of the 2019 Sydney Gold Coast race with Mistral, the same Lombard 34 that won the 2023 Pittwater Coffs race for two-handed sailors, Rupert Henry and Greg O’Shea last year.

Follow the fleet on the race tracker at:  https://yb.tl/pittwater2024

For all information go to:  www.pittwatertocoffs.com.au

Di Pearson/RPAYC media

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Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2023

• About the race
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• 2020 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race - List of Entries

As the then Governor of Tasmania, Sir Guy Green, observed at the prizegiving for the 2001 race, it is indeed an egalitarian event, attracting yachts as small as 30-footers and as big as 100-footers, sailed by crews who range from weekend club sailors to professionals from the America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Race circuits.

The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is a classic long ocean race open to anyone who owns a yacht that qualifies for this challenging event and which meets all the safety requirements of a Category 1 safety race.

In the earliest years of the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, all the yachts were built from timber - heavy displacement cutters, sloops, yawls, schooners and ketches designed more for cruising than racing.

The increasing popularity of the 628 nautical Christmas-New Year sail south to Hobart quickly began to attract new designs and innovative ideas in boat-building, sails and rigs…dacron sails and aluminium masts and in the early 1950s, the first boats built of GRP (glass reinforced plastic) or fibreglass as is the more common phrase.  Then came aluminium, steel (mostly home-built) and even one maxi yacht built of ferro cement.

Innovative Australian yacht designers such as the Halvorsen brothers, Trygve and Magnus, and the late Allan Payne and Bob Miller (Ben Lexcen) produced faster boats and the race was on to create line and overall handicap winners. Prof. Peter Joubert, a part-time designer of stout cruiser/racers, and John King were other Australians who produced winning boats.

Following in their wake are currently successful designers such as Iain Murray and his partners, Andy Dovell and Ian "Fresh" Burns, along with Scott Jutson, David Lyons and Robert Hick.

New Zealander Bruce Farr, now based on the US, led the move towards light displacement yachts and is by far the most successful designer of Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race overall winners under different international handicap systems, first IOR (International Offshore Rule), then IMS (International Measurement System), and now IRC.

The space age has had a significant spin-off for yacht racing, first in the America's Cup and then in the design and construction of ocean racing yachts, introducing composite construction of boat hulls, using Kelvar and other manmade fibres in moulding the hulls in high-tech ovens.

In the past few years carbon fibre has been used successfully to build yacht hulls, masts and spars and in the construction of working sails (mainsails and genoas/jibs). The multiple line honours winner Wild Oats XI is the latest example of almost total use of carbon fibre in its hull, mast, boom and working sails.

The fleet in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is virtually all sloops (mainsail and one foresail genoa or jibs) but several of the maxi yachts with a big fore-triangle (between the foredeck, the forestay and the mast) are successfully using two headsails on close reaching races, theoretically making them cutters.

At the small end of the 2016 fleet, Sean Langman's Maluka of Kermandie was the oldest and smallest yacht to compete, and Michael Strong’s pretty wood S&S design No. 54, Landfall, the second oldest. Landfall is the first S&S built outside the USA - by Percy Coverdale at Battery Point in Tasmania. In her other Hobarts, she finished seventh in 1952, retired in 1954, and at age 40, finished 52 nd  in 1976. Landfall returned to the race after a long absence to celebrate her 80 th  birthday in the 70 th  Hobart in 2014, but retired with sail damage, and again in 2015 retired with hull damage. 

2016 Overall Winner, Giacomo (NZL), is a true to form Volvo 70. Formerly Groupama 4, winner of the 2011-2012 VOR, Jim Delegat bought her in 2013. Delegat and his crew spent the 2016 summer season away in Sydney in an attempt to top the board in the Rolex Sydney Hobart, following his 2013 and 2014 campaigns, in which he finished sixth on line and 22 nd  overall to Black Jack’s fourth, and 36 th  overall - and dismasting off the Tasmanian coast in 2014. 

One of the most innovative and uniquely designed yachts the race has ever seen is Ludde Ingvall’s old 90ft maxi Nicorette, made over as a 100ft super maxi, CQS, which was launched in November 2016 in New Zealand where she was rebuilt. Working with a top technical team including yacht designers, engineers, yacht builders, rig designers and sail makers, he produced a boat that pushes the boundaries. The distinctive new hull shape features a reverse bow, an outsized bowsprit, ‘wings’ to spread the shroud base supporting the mast and a wide platform across the cockpit area. With such a short lead time to the 2016 Rolex Sydney Hobart, the capabilities of the boat weren't able to be reached in the race, including some damage to the hydrofoils, resulting in seventh on line. 

100ft super maxi Perpetual LOYAL, smashed the race record set by Wild Oats XI in 2012 by almost five hours, to stand at one day 13 hours 31 minutes and 20 seconds. Perpetual LOYAL is the former Speedboat and Rambler, and was slated ‘the fastest super maxi in the world’, and has now proved it in Australia. After retiring from both the 2014 and 2015 Rolex Sydney Hobarts, she underwent some technical developments, which paid off in the return of line honours and race record. 

The wide downwind racer, Jim Cooney & Samantha Grant's LDV Comanche  then came back in 2017 to show her prowess and carve nearly seven hours off the previous record. This set the new record to 1 day 9 hours 15 minutes and 24 seconds.

Divisions in the Rolex Sydney Hobart

There are many divisions in the race, which are dependent on a variety of factors; boat measurements such as weight, length and age, rig size, sail area, and any performance modifications on the boat. Here's a run down:

IRC is a time correction rating system used extensively in yacht racing around the world. Under this system, a yacht’s finishing time (elapsed time from start to finish) is multiplied by its IRC rating number to determine a corrected time. A boat’s rating is calculated by an independent body (RORC), using measurements of the boat; the length, weight, draft, rig size, sail area, and specific characteristics and features.

The resulting time corrector, or the boat’s ‘TCC’, is her handicap. The higher the TCC figure, the faster the boat's potential speed. When the last boat arrives in Hobart, the corrected times of every boat in IRC fleet will be compared and the one with the lowest time after correction will be declared the overall winner. In theory at least, this system ensures that any well-sailed boat, regardless of its age or level of technology, can win. 

Seen by its advocates among grand prix yacht owners as a more transparent rule and a truer reflection of a boat’s performance based on the old IMS system, ORCi is the other rating handicap system used in the Rolex Sydney Hobart. 

ORC Rating Systems use science and technology to develop its handicap systems. With a complete set of measurements of the hull, stability, rig and sails, it is then possible to use computer software, known as Velocity Prediction Program, to calculate the theoretical speeds for the boat in various wind conditions. This way, ORCi can tell you the performance differences between different boats in different wind conditions and course geometries.

Results for ORCi are decided by the application of the Time-on-Time Simplified Scoring System as a multiplier of elapsed time. The boat with the lowest corrected time (after application of scoring penalties, if any) will be scored first in each division.

PHS is a performance-based handicap system, with yachts being allocated a performance or arbitrary handicap. PHS division strives to give all entrants a chance of winning, provided they sail reasonably well. This is not a boat measurement based handicap, but is based on the "performance" of a particular boat. The Handicap for each race is mathematically calculated using data from all previous races. 

Results will be calculated by the application of Time Correction Factors (TCFs) as a multiplier of elapsed time. Yachts entering the IRC or ORCi handicap categories may not enter the PHS category.

A Verteran entrant is a yacht which is competing under the IRC rating system and was build prior to 1994. These entrants can also be entered in to the Overall IRC category to compete against all other yachts.

Grand Veteran

A Grand Verteran entrant is a yacht which is competing under the IRC rating system and was build prior to 1976. These entrants can also be entered in to the Overall IRC category and the Veterans category.

Corinthian Division

A Corinthian is an amatuer sailor, a Group 1, non-professional as classified by World Sailing. It states: A competitor who takes part in racing, only as a pastime, is a Group 1 competitor.

Results for the Corinthian division, are calculated by the application of PHS Time Correction Factors (TCF's) as a multiplier of elapsed time. A boat's TCF will be determined by the Race Committee or its nominee. The boat with the lowest corrected time (after application of scoring penalties, if any) will be scored first.

Cruising Division

The Cruising Division is scored on a points system. 

Prior to 9am on Race Day, a boat in the Cruising Division may nominate their predicted dates and times at which they will pass through the latitudes 36°S, 38°S, 40°S and 42°S, and when they will finish.

For example, a boat receives 20 points for first passing through the specified latitude or finishing within 1 hour of its nominated date and time, 10 points for doing so between one and two hours of its nominated date and time etc.

Points will also be awarded or deducted based on engine and autopilot usage during the race. The boat with the highest number of points (after application of scoring penalties, if any) shall be scored first.

• Line Honours

Full Standings available approximately three hours after the start.

OFFICIAL ROLEX SYDNEY HOBART MERCHANDISE

Shop the official clothing range of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in person at the Club in New South Head Road, Darling Point or online below.  

From casual to technical clothing, there is something for all occasions. Be quick as stock is limited!

Hobart protest rally calls for end to native forest logging in Tasmania, as Liberals vow to increase timber harvest

Less than a week from Tasmania's state election, thousands of people have marched in Hobart in protest against the logging of native forests, with veteran wilderness campaigner Bob Brown saying "our job is to get rid of the Earth destroyers".

Parts of the CBD were closed to traffic on Sunday morning because of the large crowd, which marched down Murray Street to the lawns of parliament, demanding an end to the practice.

The 'March For Forests' rally, organised by the Bob Brown Foundation, called on the major parties to follow the lead of Western Australia and Victoria – the only two states to end to end the logging of native forests.

Anti-logging campaigner and former federal Greens leader Brown said the protest was the "biggest pre-election crowd" that he had ever seen.

"We expected 500 and got more than 3,000. There is a huge move to get rid of the logging old parties. The swing away from Liberal and Labor will only grow in the coming week," he said.

"We are Earth, and Earth is us. Our job is to get rid of the Earth destroyers."

Liberals pledge to 'unlock' native forests for timber production

Neither the Liberals nor Labor are on-board with the push to halt timber harvesting for Tasmania's native forests.

In their policy announced in February, the Tasmanian Liberals said a "re-elected majority Rockliff Liberal government" would "unlock Tasmania's native forestry 'wood bank', providing an up to 10 per cent boost in the annual supply of high-quality sawlog to Tasmanian sawmillers".

"The Liberals are the strongest supporters of Tasmania's high-value native forestry industry, backing in Tasmanian sawmillers, contractors, and local jobs," Liberal Leader Jeremy Rockliff said.

The Tasmanian Liberals said if returned to government they would "make available up to 40,000 hectares" of the native forest "wood bank" and "make available an additional wood basket of up to 158,000 cubic metres of high-quality sawlog to Tasmanian industry".

In addition to their forest policy, the Tasmanian Liberals, while in government, enacted what have been described as "anti-protest" laws, which in February resulted in 19 Tasmanians receiving indefinite bans from entering any of the state's public native forestry estate — an area covering 812,000 hectares — after they protested logging activity.

Labor has promised, if elected after the March 23 poll, to launch an independent review into the state's native and plantation forests available for logging.

It will also stop the current plantation sawlog expression of interest process being conducted by Sustainable Timber Tasmania.

Major parties in 'race to the bottom', activist says

Campaign manager for the Wildness Society Alice Hardinge, who spoke at the Sunday rally, described the policies of the two major parties as a "race to the bottom when it comes to environmental politics".

"What we're actually seeing in the Liberal government is an increase in native forest logging. Last year alone over 7,000 hectares of native forests were logged in lutruwita/Tasmania," she said.

"I think the crowd here today shows that the vast majority of people do have a real passion for environmental issues."

The Tasmanian Greens say if elected they would end native forest logging, commence a transition program for forestry workers to exit the industry, and formally set aside a reserve of 356,000 hectares of forest.

Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff told protesters that "change is possible".

"The Greens message to you and Tasmania this election is we don't need to continue the destruction," she said.

"It is a crime of nature and the Greens will be standing parliament as we always have to make sure we do everything possible to fight it."

No change in course, Rockliff says

Earlier, Mr Rockliff told the media his party would not reconsider its policy on native logging.

"We've got our position very clear; we back the industry, we back rural and regional jobs," he said.

"None of my candidates are signing a green front group pledge which is essentially signing away jobs in rural and regional Tasmania.

"It's an anti-job pledge."

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