Glorious departure

Wild Oats XI leads the charge on Rolex Sydney Hobart

To see our photos from the start - click here

As a spectacle to prise Sydney residents and visitors away from their beach BBQs, today’s start of the 62nd Rolex Sydney Hobart could not have been bettered: a scorching sun, a respectable if chilly breeze, Sydney Harbour with its intricate topography and familiar landmarks such as the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as a backdrop and a dense crush of spectator craft clearly delineating the race track out to the open sea.

The throng descended upon the CYCA in Rushcutters Bay early today with most boats leaving the dock at 10.30-11am. The morning started off with a weather briefing where we informed that the forecast was likely to have good reliability due to the 'models coming together'. The low pressure system in the Tasman Sea has remained more or less as was forecast, although the timing of it scooting off ESE towards south island, New Zealand is a few hours delayed. As a result this evening will be a little harder work than previously anticipated.

As Barry Hanstrum, Regional Director, NSW of Australian Bureau of Meteorology imparted: “It is pretty clear that the toughest of the sailing conditions will happen tonight in the waters off the Illawarra coast where a 3-4m swell generated by the low that is moving away from Tasmania, will move up the NSW coast. At the same time the southwest wind will be at its peak - around 20 knots. So if we combine the 3-4m swell wave with a 1-2m sea, the significant wave height tonight around Wollongong will be around 5m. So obviously it will be large seas and a fairly stiff headwind for the fleet overnight tonight.”

While expectations of a spinnaker start were high and despite the 'reliable forecast', in the event the wind was more southeast than southwest and had piped up to 16-18 knots, rather than the forecast 10-12, causing the fleet to close reach out towards Sydney Heads at pace. With the 78 strong fleet starting as one but on two different lines, among the big boats on the northern line it came as no great surprise when Bob Oatley’s line honours favourite Wild Oats XI that led off the leeward end of line with ABN AMRO One and Grant Wharington’s Skandia initially on station off her weather aft flank.

Wild Oats XI reached the turning mark between Sydney Heads, 1.9 miles away in just 6 minutes 51 seconds - everyone says this is fast but the average was 17 knots - 31 seconds ahead of Skandia and ABN AMRO One. Charles Brown and Bill Buckley’s Maximus, rounded fourth having chosen the weather side of the course where they found less pressure, with the Volvo Open 70 Ichi Ban close behind.

Once out into the open sea Maximus, the highest rating boat in this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart, slowed when she appeared to break her jib halyard resulting in a crewman being hoisted promptly to the masthead to resolve the issue. The Kiwi maxi quickly recovered and by 1700 had overhauled Grant Wharington’s Skandia.

Further back Stephen Ainsworth's Loki led arch-rival Geoff Ross’ brand new 55 footer Yendys from the start but was soon overhauled in the hot 50 footers competition. At 5pm Yendys was a mile ahead of Loki. In the warm-up races prior to this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart, Yendys had proved to be the weaker boat in lighter winds. As if he foresaw what would happen on the water, shortly before leaving the dock this morning owner Geoff Ross reckoned this was only a temporary teething problem. “I think this boat is actually quite good in light air, we’re just figuring out how to make her go, so we’re not too bothered by that thought. Occupying our mind is making sure we are in the right spot at the right time.”

In the fight between the Cookson 50s, Ray Roberts’ Quantum Racing was only a mile ahead of Michael Hiatt’s Living Doll in Division 1, despite the latter racing with her canting keel fixed to improve her rating. Quantum Racing is sailing against the bigger boats in IRC Division 0 while thanks to her lower rating Living Doll is in Division 1.

This morning Quantum Racing’s star crewman, American Dee Smith, was anticipating a “cold, wet and very upwind” Rolex Sydney Hobart. “It’ll be big waves on the first day and hopefully calming down a bit. It is mostly upwind and it should be a big boat race but you never know until you get there.” The Cookson 50 has a canting keel but differs from the canting keel arrangements on Wild Oats XI and the Volvo Open 70s as she has no daggerboard or forward rudder to prevent leeway. Instead she has a less efficient trim tab on the trailing edge of her keel. Because of this Smith feels she is not an ideal upwind machine. “If it is straight upwind we are probably not as good. If we can get cracked and use the stability of the canting keel we’ll be fine. If we have to tack a lot we make a lot of leeway, so it is hard if we have to go straight upwind.”

At 0500 Chris Bull’s Jazz was following ABN AMRO and the two Volvo 60s Getaway-CMC Markets and DHL, as the most easterly boat within her size range. Contrary to Dee Smith’s view, Bull said he was looking forward to a passage south to Hobart that would be “unusual in that we don’t expect to get particularly wet and cold. It will be a tough race as usual tactically. It just won’t be quite as tough as they usually as in terms of the severity of the weather.”

Bull’s team that includes many British heavyweights such as triple Olympic medallist Rodney Pattisson, Nigel King, Jerry Eplett and navigator Mike Broughton, is another hoping that the wind will free up a bit as their J/145 also prefers reaching rather than upwind conditions. “We are going to sail the boat well in any conditions and it is not going to be all that upwind. There will quite a bit of upwind but then you don’t enter the Hobart race with any expectation other than that,” said Bull.

Aside from the conditions within Sydney Harbour not being what was forecast, another anomoly with the forecast is that the boats are this evening (Australian time) experiencing southeasterly winds. The enormous high currently hovering over the Australian Bight has developed a secondary high at present over New South Wales and closer to land the boats are more under the influence of this rather than the low out in the Tasman Sea, and this is why the wind is more southeasterly.



This evening (Aussie time) Wild Oats holds a three mile lead over Maximus and Skandia, who are neck and neck and ABN AMRO five mile astern and Ichi Ban two miles further astern. See the latest positions here

This evening Ichi Ban navigator Will Oxley explained what was going on:

"We have 2.5 knots of favourable current. We are trying to get south of Jarvis Bay. We are anticipating the breeze will go right and we are hoping that after a few tacks we will be on starboard tack and maybe even make Gabo.

"The sea state is certainly building as we come south and we are getting puffs into the 18s as a result of that low pressure. We anticipate it being fairly close in to shore and that not being a problem. I know at Montague it has been blowing 22-28 knots pretty consistently all day from the SSE so there is plenty of breeze offshore.

Oxley says that earlier the three 30m boats tacked first while they held on a little longer and tacked just to seaward of the 200m line with ABN AMRO tacking about 15 minutes later. At around 1900 (Aussie time) ABN AMRO were are about a mile south of them and a mile to seaward.

He confirmed the shift to the southeast: "From about 1530 this afternoon we have had a significant left shift. The wind is currently out of the SE and so it is 20deg favcoured on port tack and we are running along the maximum line of current, so it is pretty hard to continue going offshore when you are only 10 degres off course on this tack."

Oxley admitted that during a sail change from the J2 to the J1 they had broken a check stay and that Mitch White was up the rig replacing it. "We immediately put a spinnaker sheet to keep the mast in column but now we’re just building a new checkstay and making another one in anticipation of that one going as well. Everything is fine, but it is not something you’d want to happen in 30 knots of wind."

Fortunately after tonight the conditions are set to become much more benign and by the end of the week a high pressure system will be over Tasmania and this may allow the smaller boats the chance for a northeasterly tail wind to give them a fast run home. However given the conditions for the front runners, no one is expecting records to fall in this Rolex Sydney Hobart, as they did last year.