Spinnaker start expected for Hobart race

Start gun to go at 1300 local time

The 57 yachts in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race set sail this afternoon, providing a colourful spectacle for the expected 300,000 spectators on the water and on headlands around Sydney Harbour.

The race starts from a line north of Shark Island and a southerly change overnight has brought fresh winds to the city, expected to be blowing from the southeast at 13-17 knots by the time the starting cannon fires at 1300 local time.

The fleet should carry their spinnakers to the Rolex mark at Sydney Heads and possibly a short distance to sea, but once the boats round the Rolex Sea Mark, they will be beating to windward into the sou’easter with choppy seas rising from 1 to 2 metres offshore.

The sou’easters are expected to continue tonight and tomorrow, freshening to 15 to 20 knots during Saturday as the boats beat their way down the New South Wales South Coast.

The official starter of the 2003 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race will be 87-year-old Gordon Elliot who on this day 59 years ago set sail aboard the ketch Kathleen Gillett in the inaugural race to Tasmania.

Firing the 10 and 5 minutes cannons will be three other ‘old salts’, brothers Malcolm and Ted Bryden-Brown and Bernie Davies, who also sailed in early Sydney Hobart Races.