Light wind race to Hobart

We preview Boxing Day's annual Rolex Sydney Hobart race

	Boat	Owner	LOA	State/Nat	Div	Design
1	City Index Leopard	Mike Slade	100	UK	IRC	Maxi 30m
2	Skandia	Grant Wharington	100	VIC	IRC	Maxi 30m
3	Wild Oats XI	Robert Oatley	100	NSW	IRC	Maxi 30m
4	Toyota Aurion V6.	Andrew Short	79	NSW	IRC	Jutson 79
5	Ichi Ban	Matt Allen	70	NSW	IRC	Jones 70
6	Pirelli	Les Goodridge	65	NSW	PHS	Farr 65
7	Rosebud	Roger Sturgeon	65	USA	IRC	STP 65
8	DHL - The Daily Telegraph	Kookaburra Challenge	64	NSW	PHS	Volvo 60
9	George Gregan Foundation	David Witt	64	NSW	PHS	Volvo 60
10	Hugo Boss II	Alex Thomson Racing	64	UK	IRC	Volvo 60
11	Helsal IV	Dr T Fisher	62	TAS	??	Dynamique 62
12	Noonmark VI	Sir Geoffrey Mulcahy	56	UK	IRC	Swan 56
13	Capriccio of Rhu	Michele Colenso	55	UK	Cruis	Oyster 55
14	Yendys	Geoff Ross	55	NSW	IRC	Reichel Pugh 55
15	Flying Fish - Arctos	Flying Fish Properties	54	NSW	PHS	Radford 16.4
16	Sailors With Disabilities	David Pescud	54	NSW	PHS	Lyons 54
17	Georgia	John Williams & Graham Ainley	53	VIC	IRC	Farr 53
18	Cougar II	Alan Whiteley	52	VIC	IRC	TP 52
19	Goldfinger	Peter Blake / Kate Mitchell	52	VIC	IRC	Farr 52
20	Ragamuffin	Syd Fischer	52	NSW	IRC/IRM?	TP 52
21	Wot Yot	Graeme Wood	52	NSW	IRC	TP 52
22	Living Doll	Michael Hiatt	50	VIC	IRC	Cookson 50
23	Quantum Racing	Ray Roberts	50	NSW	IRC	Cookson 50
24	Knee Deep	Philip Childs & Frank Van Ruth	49	WA	IRC	Farr 49
25	Limit	Alan Brierty	49	WA	IRC	Corby 49
26	Spirit of Koomooloo	Mike Freebairn	48	QLD	IRC	S & S 48
27	Swan Song	Geoffrey Hill	48	NSW	IRC	Swan 48
28	Balance	Paul Clitheroe	47	NSW	IRC	Sydney 47
29	Decolsolmarine Sailplane	Decosol Marine	47	UK	IRC	Beneteau First 47.7
30	Endorfin	Peter Mooney	47	NSW	IRC	Sydney 47
31	Global Yacht Racing - Kioni	Kioni Sailing Pty Ltd	47	NSW	PHS	Beneteau 47.7
32	Jazz	Chris Bull	47	UK	IRC	J145
33	Pretty Fly II	Colin Woods	47	NSW	IRC	Beneteau 47.7
34	Wot's Next	Graeme Wood	47	NSW	IRC	Sydney 47
35	Shogun	R G Hanna	46	VIC	IRC	Rogers 46
36	Pretty Woman	R Hudson/M Lockley/R Murphy	45	NSW	IRC	Farr 45
37	Rush	Ian & John Paterson	45	VIC	IRC	Corel 45
38	Alacrity	Matthew Percy	44	NSW	IRC	Beneteau 44.7
39	Mr Beaks Ribs	David Beak	44	NSW	IRC	Beneteau First 44.7
40	Namadgi	Canberra Ocean Racing Club	44	ACT	PHS	Bavaria 44
41	Another Fiasco	Damian Suckling	43	QLD	IRC?	Jutson 43
42	Phillips Foote Witchdoctor	The Rum Consortium	42	NSW	PHS	Davidson 42
43	Secret Mens Business #1	SMB Syndicate	42	NSW	IRC	Murray 42
44	Wedgetail	Bill Wild	42	QLD	IRC	Welbourn 42
45	First Light	Nicolas Ewald & Susan Rice	41	NSW	PHS	Adams 12
46	Patrice Six	Adrian Dunphy	41	NSW	IRC	X41
47	Sextant	Denis Doyle/ Lynne Smith	41	NSW	IRC	X-412
48	AFR Midnight Rambler	Sue Psaltis & Bob Thomas	40	NSW	IRC	Farr 40 Mod
49	Aurora	Jim Holley	40	NSW	IRC	Farr 40
50	Chutzpah	Bruce Taylor	40	VIC	IRC	IRC 40
51	Iataia	Marcos Rodriguez	40	MEX	IRC	Beneteau 40.7
52	Inner Circle	Ken Robinson & Darren Cooney	40	NSW	IRC	Farr 40 IOR
53	Krakatoa II	Rod Skellet	40	NSW	PHS	Pogo 40
54	Mr Kite	Buckland & Hunn	40	NSW	IRC	Mr Kite 40
55	Papillon	Phil Molony	40	NSW	IRC	Archambault 40
56	Quetzalcoatl	Bruce/Hampshire/Lee Warner/Sweetapple	40	NSW	??	Jones 40
57	She	Peter Rodgers	40	NSW	PHS	Olsen 40 Mod
58	Splash Gordon	Stephen Ellis	40	NSW	IRC	Farr 40 - MOD
59	True North	Andrew Saies	40	SA	IRC	Beneteau First 40.7
60	Dehler Magic	Greg Tobin/ Charlie Preen	39	QLD	PHS	Dehler 39
61	Matangi	David Stephenson	39	TAS	IRC	Frers 39
62	Another Challenge	Chris Lewin	38	VIC	IRC/OD	Sydney 38
63	Challenge	Lou Abrahams	38	VIC	IRC/OD	Sydney 38
64	Eleni	Tony Levett	38	NSW	IRC/OD	Sydney 38
65	Getaway Sailing 2	Peter Goldsworthy	38	NSW	IRC	Sydney 38
66	IMAREX	Marc & Louis Ryckmans	38	NSW	IRC/OD	Sydney 38
67	Scarlet Runner	Robert Date	38	VIC	IRC/OD	Sydney 38
68	Sheridan Road Rail (Tartan)	Ian Sanford	38	NSW	PHS	Northshore 38
69	Swish	Steve Proud	38	NSW	IRC/OD	Sydney 38
70	The Bigger Picture	Mike Roberts & Anthony Hooper	38	NSW	IRC/OD	Sydney 38
71	The Goat	Foye/Gordon	38	NSW	IRC/OD	Sydney 38
72	Zen	Gordon Ketelbey	38	NSW	IRC/OD	Sydney 38
73	Salona	Phillip King	37	NSW	PHS	Salona 37
74	Pisces	David Taylor	36	TAS	IRC	Sydney 36
75	Stormy Petrel	Kevin O'Shea	36	NSW	IRC	S & S 36
76	Morna	Greg Zyner	35	NSW	IRC	Cavalier 35
77	Huckleberry	Steve Humphries	34	WA	IRC	Sparkman & Stephens 34
78	Palandri Wines Minds Eye	Brad Skeggs	34	WA	IRC	Beneteau 34.7
79	Bear Necessity	Andrew & Pauline Dally	33	NSW	IRC	C & C 115
80	Berrimilla	Alex Whitworth	33	NSW	TBA	Brolga 33
81	Impeccable	John Walker	33	NSW	IRC	Peterson 33
82	Zephyr	James Connell	33	NSW	IRC	Farr 1020

The annual Rolex Sydney Hobart of course gets underway on Boxing Day at 1300 local time (0300 GMT) this year. However this year's race doesn't look like it is going to be a fast one, with a highly changable forecast on the cards.

For the start there is an area of high pressure lurking off the New South Wales coast, centred directly off Sydney. This high is forecast to shift east out into the Tasman Sea over the course of the first 12 hours of the race leaving favourable northerlies in its place. However this respite from the light will be short lived as 24 hours in another area of high pressure moves off the New South Wales shore.

One of the key fleet dividers in this race will be getting south as quickly as possible and into the new breeze for off Eden 24 hours in a band of westerlies associated with a depression in the Southern Ocean (south of New Zealand) is forecast although this will back southwest the further south the boats sail. Unfortunately 48 hours into the race the forecast is for something of a 'glass out' pretty much across the entire race course with the exception of some slight westerly pressure in the mouth of Bass Strait while 60 hours in a northwesterlies gradient wind is forecast off the east coast of Tasmania. In short it is going to be a race that at times favours the front markers, at other times the tiddlers at the back. (See the 12 hourly forecasts on page 2....)

Given the light conditions this race we can expect crews to make more use of the complex currents to be found on the race course. A feature of the NSW coast is a warm current that runs south between 15 and 30 miles offshore

Rolex Sydney Hobart veteran and two-time overall winner Roger Hickman says he is obsessed by the current. “All of the boats have thermal imagery, trying to find it.” The current is warmer than the surrounding water. “Our strategy is built around the assumption that there is current, it’s a trend you always have to watch. We have the set and drift up on display all the time. Every ten minutes I check what the current is doing.”

According veteran navigator Lindsay May, they will go a long way off the rhumb line to find the current. In 2006, at the helm of Love & War, he rode an unusually strong current to a famous victory. On the first night at sea they had four and a half knots of favourable current with them. “We used to think of it as a river,” May says, “but now we know it is a series of eddies. We use the current until it becomes a losing angle, and then we set ourselves up for the next eddy.” While that was exceptional, typically the current will be around two knots. It is this fast moving current, brought head to head with one of the race's notorious 'Southerly Busters' that has in the past brought disaster to the Rolex Sydney Hobart. Thankfully this does not look to be on the cards this year.

For the line honours battle between the 100 footers this forecast is certain to favour Bob Oatley's recently rerigged Wild Oats XI which is some 10 tonnes lighter and with less beam is more slippery than Mike Slade's Farr designed equivalent 100 footer, City Index Leopard.

“It ain’t gonna happen,” was Slade’s summation of their prospects of setting a new race record. "But he’s not giving up just yet. “We’ve got a good fight on our hands. We didn’t come here to lose.”

Wild Oats XI skipper Mark Richards concurs that “records are elusive and with
the forecast, you would have to be doing well to beat it. But don’t rip up your ticket yet, it’s going to be a tricky race.”

A win for the Oats would see them take their third consecutive victory in the Rolex Sydney Hobart, a feat not achieved since Claude Plowman’s Morna beat the fleet to
Hobart in the 1946, 1947 and 1948 Sydney Hobarts.

Given the present forecast predicting an overall winner on handicap is particularly hard. If it is light then the slippery maxis, particularly the lith Wild Oats XI or Roger Sturgeon's new STP65 Rosebud will be able to make their own wind and could be in the chocolates, but equally a small boat, making better use of the current compared to the bigger boats, might steal it.