Hobart boat flicked, others awarded

Cookson 50 disqualified from Rolex Sydney Hobart race

The Rolex Sydney Hobart race's International Jury, chaired by John Kirkjian, with jury members Katsuya Hasiba, Lars Nyvqvist, John Rountree and Tony Mooney heard three protests and two applications for redress yesterday evening.

After an incident on the start line on Boxing Day, Rob Hanna’s Cookson 50 Shogun was protested by Stephen Ainsworth’s Loki and Syd Fischer’s Ragamuffin. The jury found that Shogun had breached rules 11, 12 and 14, and was subsequently disqualified.

The International Jury also heard applications for redress from Ragtime and Telcoinabox Merit, after both yachts provided assistance in the successful rescue of the Georgia crew members from their stricken yacht on the evening of 26 December.

The International Jury commended the outstanding assistance provided by Telcoinabox Merit by awarding them an 18 hours time correction. Telecoinabox Merit heard the request for assistance from Georgia and was requested by Race Control to go to her assistance. Telcoinabox Merit removed all 14 crew members from Georgia and travelled approximately 36 miles towards Batemans Bay so that the crew members could be transferred to a police launch when light permitted. She was then released by Race Control and resumed racing by which time she was in a different weather pattern to her closest competitor, a similar vessel. This resulted in Telecoinabox Merit finishing 16th across the line and the provisional winner of PHS Division (to be confirmed once all yachts in PHS Division have finished).

Ragtime, who had observed the distress flare and responded to the call from Race Control to render assistance, had their time amended by 115 minutes for standing by, having to backtrack to standby and then for the resumption of racing after being released by Race Control. This has now brought Ragtime’s position to 18th across the line and 1st in IRC Division 2 (to be confirmed once all yachts in Division 2 have finished).