It has taken a while – in fact a whole month – for the Chairman of the Sydney-Hobart Race Committee to finally respond to the controversy following his protest against Celestial and the Committee’s grant of redress to Ichi Ban. Perhaps retired Rear Admiral Lee Goddard was hoping that the heat of this incident would cool with time.

Goddard today issued a statement to all offshore competitors via the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia titled “Monitoring VHF and Assistance”. The bulk of his release emphasizes the requirement for continuous monitoring of VHF16 and the specific rules and maritime safety regulations that apply…

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Tired of paying grouchy a-holes $1,200 a day to yell at you on your J/70? Here’s your solution; an unmanned surface vessel! Sure they prolly cost around a million bucks each, and you’ll likely need a full-time engineer, but at least you don’t have to buy all those lunches…

More here.

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We are now at the end of the Maxi season so time for a bit of a round-up… Overall this year has been remarkably successful for the International Maxi Association. Especially given the global picture at the start of 2021. That said, inevitably with the continuing pandemic, the events in the early part of the year had to take place under considerable restriction with travel between European countries and even regions within those countries remaining extremely limited.

However, in a brave move by Yacht Club Italiano, they pressed on with the planned launch of their new opening regatta for Maxis; the Regate di Primavera in Portofino had already been ‘resting’ for a few years and so it was a bit of a gamble to relaunch it in 2021. Even at the last moment, it had to be postponed for a week due to Covid, which then presented a knock-on problem as the event became overlapped with Rolex Capri Week. That the final entry was almost entirely local and Italian was hardly surprising…

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How many minutes of sailing have you seen covered on your TV in the past few Olympics? We, the sailing public, would of course like to see more. In an effort to make it more exciting we changed to faster, more exciting boats and even foiling but there has been little change in the amount of mainstream coverage sailing has received anywhere in the world. Why is this important? Especially as we’d like to see our sport grow and greater mainstream media coverage is one way to help that…

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Over the weekend, the first finishers of the 2022 RORC Transat made landfall in Grenada, led by Giovanni Soldini’s Multi70 Maserati, which was awarded line honors with a corrected time of six days, 18 hours and 51 minutes. Maserati finished ahead of Peter Cunningham’s MOD70 PowerPlay and Jason Carroll’s MOD70 Argo by less than 20 miles.

“That was really fantastic,” said Soldini after the finish. “To do a transatlantic race like that with three boat 20 miles from each other is just amazing. We had a big problem the first night as straight away we broke the port rudder (hitting a UFO). However, in the second part of the race, luckily the angle was such that the starboard rudder was in the water.”

The next day, the famed 100ft VPLP Design/Verdier Maxi Comanche was awarded line honors for monohulls and secured the IMA Trophy. Comanche has set a new race record of seven days, 22 hours and one minute, beating the previous monohull record by over two days. Their speed run is not a huge surprise given that Comanche is in the habit of squashing records, and it already holds the title for the Monohull West-East Transatlantic record, as well as race records and line honors for the Rolex Fastnet Race, the RORC Caribbean 600, the Rolex Sydney Hobart, the Transpac and the Rolex Middle Sea Race. It’s still possible, however, that another monohull in the fleet could take the overall victory with a corrected IRC time.

“Comanche is an absolute weapon in the open ocean,” said skipper Mitch Booth. “The team are just so privileged to have the opportunity to race this boat with the full support and trust from the owners. It’s just a real thrill to be on board” The crew is a mix of offshore sailors, grand prix inshore sailors and a few newcomers. “We are not in set roles,” Booth says. “Everyone is trimming and on the helm. We are mixing it up, having a great time. It’s been really fun sailing together. Setting Atlantic records is iconic and very special.”

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Explorers are preparing an epic expedition in the Antarctic to find the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance, the ship that disappeared under the ice in the Weddell Sea in November 1915.

The Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust (FMHT) has announced that come February 5, a team of polar explorers will embark on another mission to locate the famous wreck. The expedition, dubbed Endurance22, comes one month after the 100th anniversary of Shackleton’s death on 5 January, 1922. The British Antarctic explorer led three expeditions to the frozen continent, playing a central role during a time that was in later years called the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.”

Endurance was one of two ships used by the Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914–1917, which aimed to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic. In January 1915 the ship became trapped in the ice, stranding Shackleton and his 27-member crew…

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This spring, two double-hulled canoes, Hōkūle‘a and Hikianalia, will set off for what organizers are calling the Moananuiākea Voyage—a 41,000-mile, 42-month circumnavigation of the Pacific. The boats will visit 46 countries and archipelagos that are home to nearly 100 indigenous territories and 345 ports. The goal of the voyage? Education about oceanic and environmental health and the impact both have on the indigenous people of the region.

“Today we find ourselves facing some of the most challenging threats we’ve ever faced. From this global pandemic to burning forests, emptying oceans, melting glaciers, rising seas, and storms that will change both the Earth and humanity,” says Nainoa Thompson, president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, the group in charge of the Hōkūle‘a project, and a Pwo, or master, navigator. “With the Moananuiākea Voyage, we feel the urgency to seek out and connect a new generation of bold, brilliant and caring leaders around the world who can chart a course for a flourishing future for Hawaii, the Pacific and the Earth.”

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It can be a cruel way to spend your Christmas holiday.

With the fastest few boats now finished and snug alongside, the rest of the Sydney-Hobart fleet can start worrying about when they’ll need to cross the line to score a podium place on handicap.

Sailing against the clock in the frustrating conditions down the Tasmanian coast, across Storm Bay and up the Derwent River can be a protracted agony.

The race website, which is accessed by all competitors within internet range, helpfully now includes a “time to beat” calculation for every yacht still at sea with winning ambitions. Often those targets can seem out of reach but in this year’s slow race the possibilities are tantalizing.

Some of the TP52s have already finished. Ichi Ban beat Celestial home by 17 minutes but ended up a frustrating 3 minutes behind on IRC corrected time. Skipper Matt Allen’s hopes of a ‘three peat’ Hobart victory will now have to wait until next year.

Pictured above, and currently leading on IRC is the S&S34 Azzurro, one of the smallest yachts in the fleet. To win they’ll need to finish before 07:00 on December 31. With 200nm to go that’s a distinct possibility…

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