65th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race - Day 4
by Rolex Media Centre 29 Dec 2009 08:37 GMT
Southerly slow-up
A strong southerly to southwesterly change sweeping up the Tasmanian coast this afternoon slowed the 87 yachts still at sea in the 2009 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race.
At 1600, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a strong wind warning for the lower east coast, from Wineglass Bay to Tasman Island for southwest to southerly winds of 30 knots in open waters at first, easing to 5 to 15 kn by late evening, with two to three metre seas and a southwest swell of 2.5 to 3.5 metres.
The winds would then tend northeast to northerly at 10 - 20kn during tomorrow morning before increasing during the afternoon to 20 - 30kn by evening.
For the yachts covering the remaining miles of the 628 nautical mile race, the forecast meant a bumpy, wet night of tacking upwind before the strong northerly picks up the fleet still at sea and propels them towards Tasman Island at a very fast pace on a wild spinnaker ride.
That scenario removes any certainty about the computer calculations of the likely winner of the Tattersall's Cup for the overall IRC handicap winner.
But it is comforting for a leading contender for the Tattersall's Cup, already tied up at the Kings Pier Marina in Hobart. At 1800, Niklas Zennstrom's Judel/Vrolijk 72 Ran (UK), was showing up in 15th position on corrected time calculations.
Ran's tactician, Adrian Stead, said: "We're in good shape; we got Neville (Alfa Romeo) by 50 minutes or so, which is good and we sailed really well. All we can do now is wait and see how we shape up."
Also at 1800, Tony Kirby's X41 Patrice 6 was calculated to be leading IRC overall handicap from an eclectic mix of designs and sizes. She was 12nm east of Cape Sonnerat, between the coastal villages of Swansea and Triabunna, making seven knots with 96nm to sail.
Second was Andrew Saies' Beneteau First 40 Two True, followed by Wicked (Mike Welsh), another Beneteau First 40. Then came the Spanish entry Charisma (Alejandro Perez Calzada), a 1970 Sparkman & Stephens IOR rule design that should revel in the strong upwind conditions.
One IRC handicap result that is certain is the win of Neville Crichton's 100ft super-maxi Alfa Romeo, the line honours winner, in IRC division 0 for canting keel-powered boats and the second place in that division for Matt Allen's modified Jones-design Volvo 70, unbeatable in second place on current position reports.
Allen said the Volvo 70 was a very good boat for upwind and in high-wind pressure sailing. In the sou'-wester of up to 25 knots on the first night, she worked up to within a half mile behind Wild Oats XI.
"We were not overly surprised to see that, but we knew the next night in the lighter airs and with the bigger sails the maxis carry, giving away rating, they would get through that first light-air gate. Only the three boats got through and the next morning we were there with all our fellow-sized boats stuck for five or six hours."
Allen said that every night there were challenges. "You'd sail through the day, with quite a few wind shifts, but generally the night-time sailing was tricky. Every night we parked up. Tactically it was a very interesting race, because you had to work out where you were going to get through in the next transition.
"Last night we'd had a 30-knot nor'-westerly and we were doing 25 knots, white water coming over the boat. It lasted for an hour and-a-half and within minutes it went down really quickly: to ten knots, to five and then zero. So we went from having 30 knots to being in no wind with leftover swell and you could only go in one direction, with the waves.
"The big transition zones had the navigators really on their toes, playing the angles and trying to work out how to handle the next transition."
With eight yachts finished, and five yachts retired, there are 87 yachts still racing to the finish in Hobart.
The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race fleet has crews representing the USA, UK, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, and New Caledonia as well as every Australian state.
For more information about the Rolex Sydney Hobart 2009 including the entry list, yacht tracker and standings, please visit the event website at www.rolexsydneyhobart.com
Fans of social networking can follow the race via Twitter at twitter.com/rshyr
Wild Oats XI does a rapid U-turn in Hobart while owner Bob Oatley plans to come back next year (by Rob Mundle)
Bob Oatley’s supermaxi Wild Oats XI slipped into Hobart just minutes after midnight last night, but even before she had crossed the finish line in the Rolex Sydney Hobart race he was planning a return.
‘We came here this year to get our fifth line honours and missed the target, so we will have to come back next year and go again,’ said the 81-year-old veteran yachtsman and famous winemaker. ‘It is wonderful to see Neville Crichton so happy after taking line honours with Alfa Romeo this year. He has wanted this result for four years, and he and his crew deserve it.
‘In this sport, like any other, you must enjoy your victories and learn from your defeats. I’m very proud of what the Wild Oats XI team has achieved since 2005 – four straight line honours, a race record time that still stands, and a win on handicap. Tonight all I can add is that four wins and a second out of five races isn’t bad.’
A wildly fluctuating and rapidly weakening breeze on the Derwent River slowed Wild Oats XI’s progress to the finish line off Hobart’s waterfront: she eventually crossed the line two hours after the victor. By the time third the placed supermaxi, ICAP Leopard (Mike Slade, UK), entered the river the breeze was all but gone. She eventually reached the finish 5 hours 40 minutes behind Wild Oats XI.
Wild Oats XI skipper, Mark Richards, said after finishing in Hobart that Crichton and his team had sailed a faultless race: ‘It was a tactical race and we never really got a look in, Alfa Romeo had a little edge on us in speed on the first night, then the next morning, when we were in a big, windless parking lot together, they got the new breeze first and put 30 miles on us before we knew what had happened. That’s the way it is and congratulations to those guys.’
Within minutes of arriving at the dock in Hobart the Richards and his crew were converting Wild Oats XI from racing to delivery mode. Four hours later, before sunrise and with many of the race crew still aboard, the supermaxi was heading out of the Derwent River on a high speed delivery back to Sydney for the start of the Pittwater to Coffs Harbour race on January 2.
ICAP Leopard narrowly beaten in Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race (by Annabel Merrison)
100ft British super-maxi beaten by Kiwi and Australian rivals, just missing out on historic treble
At 05:45 (local time) on the 29 December 2009 ICAP Leopard, the 100ft British super-maxi racing yacht owned by Helical Bar PLC chief executive Mike Slade, crawled up the Derwent river to finish third in what has been a light and arduous Sydney-Hobart race. After a long and hard-fought battle with her lighter rivals Wild Oats XI and eventual winner Alfa Romeo, the exhausted ICAP Leopard crew crossed the Tasmanian finish line after a torturous two days, 16 hours and 45 minutes at sea.
Whilst the Rolex Sydney-Hobart is well known for the fearsome conditions that it often throws at its competitors, this year’s edition was shifty and tactical almost from the word go. Faced with unstable weather conditions for the entire race, tacticians and navigators were hard-pressed to find every puff of breeze in order to gain any advantage after an uncharacteristically cold and blustery opening few hours.
ICAP Leopard’s veteran navigator Hugh Agnew commented: “This has been one of the most challenging races I have ever come up against. Forecasts changed hourly in the run-up to the start and it was impossible to predict the weather right up until the finish gun fired. It has been an immense tactical battle. We are disappointed not to have taken line honours but our congratulations go out to Alfa Romeo. They opened up a gap on day two and sailed an impeccable race from then on.”
This result means that ICAP Leopard has also missed out on a historic treble. Having been first home in the Rolex Fastnet and Middle-Sea races earlier in the season, Slade and his crew had the opportunity to be the first to win all three “offshore classics” in a calendar year. Unfortunately, with conditions suiting their lightweight rivals, it wasn’t to be.
Owner and skipper of ICAP Leopard, Mike Slade, commented: “Another Rolex Sydney-Hobart race and another cracking battle! Whilst this race may not have been a ‘classic’ it was a fantastic tussle. We are disappointed, of course, not to have taken line honours and the treble but we have had a brilliantly successful season nonetheless. The crew has been fantastic. In conditions that have not always suited us we have matched and even outpaced our rivals and it is a huge testament to Chris [Sherlock - Boat Captain] and the team that we managed to keep Wild Oats behind us for so long.
“All that remains now is for us to paint the town red, beat the locals at a spot of cricket and enjoy spending some time with old friends before the flight home!”