Sydney, Australia (December 26, 2023) – LawConnect made best of its bid to break a hoodoo of three runner-up finishes in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race by leading the fleet towards the Heads after this afternoon’s start.

The Christian Beck owned maxi led off the start line on Sydney Harbour at 1pm, then lost the lead to SHK Scallywag and Andoo Comanche due to a furling issue on a sail change.

SHK Scallywag led out of the Heads from Andoo Comanche, with the fleet of 103 strung out on four start lines. Grant Wharington’s Wild Thing 100 was the last of the maxis to clear the Heads, her smaller rig made it hard to keep up.

Last boat out was the Currawong 30, Currawong, one of 18 two handed entries that is co-skippered by Kathy Veel and Bridget Canham and was last to reach Hobart last year. Just in front of them was Sylph VI, Bob Williams’ boat with cat Oli aboard enjoying the ride.

Soon outside the Heads, LawConnect recovered from its furling issue and was back leading the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s (CYCA) 628 nautical mile race.

Beck lauded his crew today, but he was at pain to modestly set himself apart from the praise, saying: “That’s not me … The rest of the crew is awesome. I think that’s what will make or break us really.”

Beck also admitted that the label of being seen as perennial Sydney Hobart bridesmaid has added fuel to the motivation of his crew. “Of course, it does. Yes,” he said.

Today’s start before a larger than usual spectator fleet in light 5 to 10 knot east to north-easterly winds was not without drama though.

Andoo Comanche, the defending Line Honors champion skippered by John Winning Jnr, raised a protest flag after a port and starboard incident with the David Witt skippered SHK Scallywag.

However, SHK Scallywag, owned by Seng Huang Lee, completed a 720 degree turn near Bondi which exonerated the Hong Kong boat from the incident.

The forecast before the start was for east to north-east winds of 5 to 10 knots, with winds increasing to 20 knots offshore, with warnings of gusts. Winds were then expected to shift south-westerly by Wednesday as a series of troughs and cold front push through.

By the time the fleet was pushing south down the NSW Coast in lumpy offshore swells this afternoon, the signals of what is expected to come had already been seen.

Half an hour before the start, the humidity and heat made way for a fall in temperature as darkening skies, thunder and lightning in the horizon moved in from the north.

A shower of rain then swept over Sydney Harbour as crews underwent their final preparations before it headed south to leave the harbour again under a blaze of sunshine.

In the front line, the maxis, TP52s and other medium boats had a clean start. The four maxis were separated into two pods. HSK Scallywag and Wild Thing 100 set off from close to the pin on the western side of the Harbour, while LawConnect and Andoo Comanche favoured the east.

Casualty Count:
Seng Huang Lee’s 100ft SHK Scallywag from Hong Kong, has become the first casualty of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, breaking her bow sprit early this evening Sydney time.

SHK Scallywag, skippered by David Witt, had recently undergone modifications and with some well-known crew added, seemed to be in great shape, but it was not to be. Without the bow sprit, flying spinnakers is impossible.

A short time later, Peter Davison’s Archambault 40 RC, Arcadia from Victoria, along with the two-handed entry of Shane Connolly/Tony Sutton on the J/99, Rum Rebellion, also reported they had retired from the 78th running of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s 628 nautical mile race.

Arcadia has retired with a torn mainsail, but no reason has been given at this stage for Rum Rebellion from Sydney.

Later during the first night, Michael Spies skippered TP52, Maritimo 52, sustained rig damage which ultimately caused other damage to the boat.

Crew member Peter Jones said, “The fitting on the deck for the forestay shredded, which ripped the No. 4 headsail and the mainsail. We tried to work a million ways around it, but we would have been sailing at 50 percent. We are shattered.

“The weather shocking overnight. We had as much lightning as I’ve ever seen. The sou-west front came through, we saw high 20s to early 30s (knots) and had solid rain for three hours.

“We were south of Jervis Bay, 115 miles down the course. Everyone on board is fine,” ended Jones, who expects the yacht to be back at the CYCA around mid-afternoon today.

Then came the news that Sticky, the Cookson 50 owned by Richard Harris, had suffered electrical damage, forcing her retirement.

There are now 98 boats still in the race, inclusive of 17 two-handed entries.

Details: https://www.rolexsydneyhobart.com/

The 628 nm course for the 78th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race has several key features following the exit from Sydney Harbor on December 26. Most notable is the crossing of the easternmost edge of the exposed Bass Strait, a notorious expanse of water that can serve up punishing and violent waves, and then periods when the sea is calm as the wind fades. The final stretch up the Derwent River into Hobart can be either kind or cruel when deciding the results of the race.

Source: RSHYR

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There was a distinct crackle of tension in the air as the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia paraded some of the Sydney-Hobart overall handicap-winning hopefuls for the media yesterday.

On the surface, it was all sweetness and light between the five skippers on the panel as they fielded softball questions from the media. In truth, given half a chance, they’d all be secretly loosening each others’ keel bolts before the race start on Tuesday.

But in the interests of diplomacy, goodwill to all men (and they were all men), and respect for the sponsors the participants suppressed their competitive instincts and played nice for the cameras.

Standing in a neat row beneath the obligatory Rolex backdrop were 2022 winner Sam Haynes (Celestial), Max Klink (Swiss skipper of the hot TP52 Caro), Anthony Johnson (owner of the now-veteran RP72 URM Group), Simon Torvaldsen (skipper of the new JPK11.8 Atomic Blonde) and Marc Michel (campaigning the New Zealand Dehler 30 Niksen in the two-handed division).

Nobody was giving much away. Haynes confirmed that Celestial was sporting some new sails and had made modifications to their rig in an effort to improve the boat’s upwind performance. Klink just seemed happy to be having another tilt at Sydney-Hobart honours in a boat that has already won the Fastnet Race this year.

But the topic that now dominates dockside conversation in Sydney – the likely weather offshore next week – was largely set aside. There were the usual platitudes about how plenty of windward work would favour some boats, light downwind stuff might favour others. Indeed.

As ever, no one really knows anything until Boxing Day morning. Even then, tactics will be the usual lottery as the 105-strong fleet heads South. It’s the Hobart, after all.

Pictured above is the R/P 40 Chutzpah, from Carlo Borlenghi.

– anarchist David

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It’s been beach weather in Australia as 107 teams for the 78th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race eagerly wait for weather updates to prepare for the 628 nautical mile which starts December 26, 2023.

However, due to the high temperatures and humidity across NSW in recent days, which is set to continue leading up to the Boxing Day, it is too early to make a precise indication.

Gabrielle Woodhouse, Senior Meteorologist from the NSW Bureau of Meteorology, notes that the best indication now was for a light south-westerly wind at the start with rain and the chance of thunderstorms later. A low pressure system is expected over the Tasman, but when that hits is also uncertain.

“It’s too hard to say. The spread of scenarios is too huge,” reports Woodhouse. “At this stage, it’s most likely that the race will begin with some kind of south or south-westerly wind, and during the race, probably we will see some rain and some thunderstorms.

“There’s significant uncertainty, and with that prospect of a potential low pressure system, somewhere over the Tasman Sea.

“What we’ll see at the moment, for at least the next few days, is quite a bit of movement in some of those forecasts. And we’ll start to narrow that down during the weekend (Dec. 23-24).”

The huge question mark over the forecast calls for a busy time in the coming days for the navigators to be prepared for anything.

For the David Witt-skippered Dovell 100, SHK Scallywag, the situation could well vindicate the decision to have two navigators on board – Juan Vila and Chris Wild.

The Hong Kong registered boat is one of four maxi yachts in this year’s race in which they are traditionally the Line Honors favorites. The other maxis are the defending Line Honors champion Andoo Comanche, along with LawConnect and the new Wild Thing 100.

Asked about the decision to have two navigators on SHK Scallywag, Wild said: “Navigation is a little bit like a department than a role. There are multiple facets to it, especially on a maxi.

“With [uncertain] conditions, it’s a good call to have that capability, especially for the second half of the race. You do a lot of planning before you leave and then you get to stay on your toes in the second half of the race.”

Adrienne Cahalan, navigator of the Phillip Turner owned and Duncan Hine skippered Reichel/Pugh 66 Alive, notes how they will have to look at all the different scenarios, including some of the worst ones. “I can’t really think of a year when it’s been, you know, so much rain, so much moisture, and so much uncertainty in the forecast.”

Alice Parker, navigator of the Reichel/Pugh 72 URM Group, notes how it currently is such a moving picture. “I find it a little bit exciting when the forecast is this uncertain because anything can happen and there’ll be opportunities for little boats and opportunities for big boats.”

Kathy Veel, owner/co-skipper with Bridget Canham of Currawong 30 Currawong, explained that for the race in the Two-Handed division, she was not overly concerned about the uncertainty. “I made a point really of not looking too closely at the weather until a couple of days out, because you can’t control it, you’re not going to change it. There’s a lot of other things to worry about. So why worry about the weather a week out?”

David Henry, owner/co-skipper and navigator of the two-handed entry, the Sydney 36, Philosopher, is also preparing for the long haul. “The only thing we definitely know at this stage is we don’t know. I’m just hoping for more good news at the end.

“We don’t have one weather system to worry about, we probably have at least two weather systems to get through. We have double trouble when it comes to trying to predict what the weather is going to be.

“What we see on Boxing Day is one weather pattern. A day or so after that, we’re looking further down the track, because we’ll probably take three or four days to get there.”

Details: https://www.rolexsydneyhobart.com/

The 628 nm course for the 78th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race has several key features following the exit from Sydney Harbor on December 26. Most notable is the crossing of the easternmost edge of the exposed Bass Strait, a notorious expanse of water that can serve up punishing and violent waves, and then periods when the sea is calm as the wind fades. The final stretch up the Derwent River into Hobart can be either kind or cruel when deciding the results of the race.

Source: Rupert Guinness | RSHYR

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Britain’s Ian Williams has clinched his seventh Match Racing World Championship title by winning the 2023 World Match Racing Tour Final held December 13-17 in Shenzhen, China. Sailing with with his Chinaone.Ningbo team of Jon Gundersen, Richard Sydenham, and Gerrard Mitchell on FarEast 28R keelboats, the victory sets a new record for the most championship wins in the Tour’s history.

Williams had to work hard to earn his victory, battling Megan Thomson (NZL) in the semi-finals and Gavin Brady (USA) in the final. Thomson, who eliminated round-robin winner Björn Hansen (SWE) in the quarter-finals, managed to secure a win against Williams in their semi-final match before he claimed his spot in the final with a score of 3-1.

The conditions on the final day presented challenges, characterized by brisk and gusty northeast winds, reminiscent of the quarter-finals a day earlier. Finding a path up the course proved tricky and required close attention to the pressure and shifts. Whichever team connected them the best would gain the advantage, which led to numerous lead changes in each race.

The fight for the championship title was some of the closest match racing of the entire regatta. It was Brady who got the first point on the board.

“We managed to get in close and waited for an opportunity to appear at the top mark. It was the one defining moment in the race,” recalled Brady. “We made a big call at the bottom mark to tack off at the bottom, and that paid off for a right-hand shift.”

The next three races all went to Williams, but not without a tough battle. In a thrilling third race, Brady and Williams were changing leads and crossing tacks, never more than a few boat lengths away from each other. But it was Williams and his team who found the favorable shifts and pulled ahead.

Williams talks about the crew work, “it was about being both smooth and aggressive with the shifts; that’s what we were working on,” adding how “it was all about the shifts and connecting the puffs. We’ve really got in our groove.

“Amazing that it’s taken this long, but we really felt the last two races we were in our groove and understood the rhythm of the shifts and the way the boat sails. We were really pleased with our performance, particularly in the last race.

“Incredible to finally have got the seventh world title. The last one was back in 2016, nearly eight years. To come with a new team, Chinaone.Ningbo, and come to China and win the world title, it’s amazing. It’s been a long time coming. We’ve battled away. We’ve never stopped trying.”

Gavin Brady (USA) and his True Blue Racing team of Nick Blackman, Tom Powrie, and Dave Swete gave Williams a great battle, but missing out on a few critical shifts saw them finish in second.

“It’s a little disappointing,” admitted Brady. “You don’t get many chances to win a world championship. Is this the last shot you get at it, or do you get another shot at it in the future?”

Brady showed a huge level of improvement in terms of aggressiveness in the final against Williams, something Brady’s crew have been pushing him toward all season. His improvement on his instinct to go for a penalty instead of playing it safe has been something he’s been proud of this week.

This confidence was evident in the finals as he pushed boundaries, sometimes leading to penalties against him. However, it proves his team’s adaptability against the world’s top match racers.

Reflecting on his season, reaching the final, and competing against Williams, Brady remarked, “I do think we sailed against the best in the world, for sure. The names on the trophy prove it.”

Another remarkable performance was seen from Megan Thomson and her 2.0 Racing team, securing a third-place finish. Thomson became the first female skipper to be in the top four of a World Match Racing Tour Final and defeated 2023 Bermuda Cup’s undefeated champion Johni Berntsson (SWE) for the podium spot.

“The result is more than we could have hoped for,” says Thomson after the third place finish. Looking ahead, she added, “We’re hoping to build upon this and come back to the next event stronger.”

Thomson also sails on the Women’s World Match Racing Tour and hopes to see some of that talent on the World Match Racing Tour next year.

“It’d be great to see some more girls here. There is definitely the level out there to have them be at these events and on the open tour,” she says.

This event concludes the 2023 season, with Williams’ team awarded the largest portion of the USD 200,000 purse.

Tour information – Event details – Results – Facebook

Founded in 2000, the World Match Racing Tour (WMRT) promotes the sport of match racing around the world and is the longest running global professional series in the sport of sailing. The winner of the WMRT each year is crowned World Sailing Match Racing World Champion.

Previous champions include Sir Ben Ainslie (GBR), Taylor Canfield (USA), Peter Gilmour (AUS), Magnus Holmberg (SWE), Peter Holmberg (ISV), Adam Minoprio (NZL), Torvar Mirsky (AUS), Bertrand Pace (FRA), Jesper Radich (DEN), Phil Robertson (NZL), and Ian Williams (GBR).

Since inception, the World Match Racing Tour and its events have awarded over USD23million in prize money to sailors which has helped to contribute to the career pathway of many of today’s professional sailors.

Source: WMRT

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A perfect finish to the perfect Southern Ocean sailing adventure, and in true Auckland style, the triumphant Translated 9 IT (09) were greeted with four seasons in one day. The stunning Italian Swan 65, skippered by Vittorio Malingri, sailed over the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron finish line at 13hrs 25m 22 seconds (NZDT) taking first in line honors, provisional IRC and Flyer Class in the 2023-24 Ocean Globe Race.

This will herald their second IRC win, having taken the title in the Leg One race, Southampton to Cape Town. The ten-strong crew were determined to retain the prestigious title in the Cape Town to Auckland leg and their dogged determination paid off. Vittorio Malingri, Translated 9 skipper says they’re delighted with their tactics.

“We went south, you have to go south, that is how you sail around the world. Some days in the fog it was one degree, four degrees. We didn’t see the sun for two weeks! But we are so happy to be here. New Zealand is an amazing country,” said Vittiorio, whose father Franco, and uncle, Doi, took part in the first Whitbread Round the World Race in 1973…

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