Grundig leading?

The Rolex Sydney-Hobart race is lining up for a highly tactical finish reports James Boyd from Hobart

Hobart is currently in a state of frenzy with the report from a helicopter pilot following the race that contrary to what is indicated on the race tracker system, Sean Langman's Grundig is the present leader in the Rolex Sydney-Hobart race ahead of the two 100ft super-maxis line honour favourites Zana and Skandia.

At present Zana and Skandia are around 55 miles offshore around one quarter of the way down Tasmania's east coast. Grundig is believed to be further inshore. The supermaxis are such a long way offshore as the gradient wind is currently 20 knots from the southwest and they are attempting to steer clear of the wind shadow behind Tasmania. The current observations from weather stations along the east coast of Tasmania confirm the existence of this wind shadow - 5 knots NNW at Eddystone Point (the NE tip of Tasmania) and 2 knots SW at Bicheno (half way down the coast).

Interestingly on the boats where the tracking system is currently working, such as Skandia, Brindabella and Andrew Short Marine, show they are currently on port tack heading back in towards the Tasman Coast on a course of 250deg.

The forecast charts show the wind is expected to back from the southwest to the southeast over the next few hours so the crew will be hoping that going on to the new tack will help lift them back on course (the course to Tasman Island which they must round before they head towards the finish line is currently 200deg). At present though they are on a losing tack which will significantly favour Grundig if she is indeed further inshore.

Overnight there has been disaster for Ludde Ingvall's Nicorette which suffered serious damage to her appendages while crossing Bass Strait. Just after midnight local time Ingvall informed the race committee that Nicorette had broken her daggerboard at 8.25pm and this was followed at 11.30 by structure problems with her new canting keel itself when the welds on the mounting for her hydraulic rams began to crack and this was causing delamination in some of the carbon fibre support structure for the keel.

Nicorette is presently heading for Eden on the New South Wales South Coast.

The race organisers are predicting the boats to finish sometime tonight (local time), however we think it might be considerably later. Around about the time the front runners are due to round Tasman Island and head into Storm Bay the wind looks set to clock around the northeast - and thus there will be major areas of calm inside the bay making the last few miles to finish particularly tactical. We would predict finishes happening at breakfast time tomorrow (local time).