How exciting! It’s one week to go to the start of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. The warning signal for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race will be at 12:50 hours (Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time) on Sunday, 26 December 2010. Current course record was raced on 2005 by Wild Oats XI (AUS) Bob Oatley /Mark Richards, totalling 1 day 18h 40m 10s. The first boats are expected to arrive to Hobart on Tuesday 28 December 2010 from 7:40 am forward, any boat arriving earlier will break the current course record.
Does anyone know where to see the broadcast of the race start outside Australia / NZ?
The Event
Along with the Rolex Fastnet Race and the Newport Bermuda Race, which both take place in the northern hemisphere, the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is one of the world’s three big offshore classic yacht races. Over the past 65 years, the 628-nautical mile Rolex Sydney Hobart has become an icon of summer sport in Australia, ranking in public interest with such national events as the Melbourne Cup horse race, the Australian Open tennis tournament and the cricket test matches between Australia and England. With the exception of the America’s Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race every four or five years, no yachting event in the world attracts as much media attention as the start of the race in Sydney Harbour on 26 December every year.
Over the years, the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and the organising club, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA), have greatly marked international ocean yacht racing. The club has influenced the world in race communications and safety at sea, maintaining the highest standards of yacht construction, safety and stability for ocean racing yachts.
The race is widely regarded as one of the toughest tests of seamanship in the sport of sailing. Almost every year, heavy weather conditions are encountered on the course as the fleet heads south in the Tasman Sea, crossing the eastern part of Bass Strait on the way. The notoriety of the race comes from its ability to offer up wild conditions with little warning.
The event has been sailed every year since 1945, and this year will mark the 66th edition with a fleet that, at press time, includes 102 applications for entry representing every state in Australia, plus France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom and the USA. The Tattersall’s Cup, the overall winner’s trophy for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, is awarded to the boat with the best corrected time on handicap using the IRC system and the vast majority of the fleet will again be eligible for overall honours in 2010.
As a result of the inquest into the 1998 Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, in which six sailors tragically lost their lives in some of the most extreme conditions ever experienced at sea, recommendations for the future conduct of the race were adopted by the CYCA and incorporated into the Yachting Australia Racing Rules of Sailing. In its Notice of Race, the CYCA requires a boat to have completed a qualifying race or passage in the six months preceding the start of the race and that the skipper and at least half the crew of each yacht shall have completed a Category 1 race or an equivalent passage. Under the crew eligibility rules, at least 50% of the crew on board shall have completed
a Yachting Australia Safety and Sea Survival Course or an approved equivalent, while at least two crewmembers per boat shall hold a Senior First Aid Certificate or equivalent qualification, or be a practising medical practitioner. Finally, two crew must hold a Restricted Operators Certificate of Proficiency in Radio Telephony.
Race tracker
Each year the CYCA equips each boat with an Inmarsat D+ transmitter to enable the real time positions of the fleet to be shown on the website. The transmitter automatically updates a yacht’s latitude, longitude, and course and speed over ground and then sends that information via satellite to an earth station. From there, the data is transferred to the event website, which shows textually and graphically each yacht’s position in the fleet, its place relative to other boats and known geographical features, and its current speed and course. In addition, the position reports are immediately converted to show each yacht’s distance to the finish line and its progressive corrected (handicap) time position.
The course
The 628-nautical mile course is often described as one of the most gruelling ocean races in the world, a veritable test of seamanship. After a spectacular start in Sydney Harbour, the fleet sails out into the Tasman Sea, down the south-east coast of mainland Australia, across the eastern part of Bass Strait – which divides the mainland from the island state of Tasmania – then down the east coast of Tasmania. At Tasman Island, the fleet turns into Storm Bay for the final leg of the race up the Derwent River to the historic port city of Hobart.
Those who sail the race often say the first and last days are the most exciting. The start of the race in Sydney Harbour attracts hundreds of spectator craft, and hundreds of thousands of people line the shore as helicopters buzz above the fleet, taking pictures and filming for TV and print media around the world. The final day at sea is tense as crews fight to beat their rivals, while looking forward to the traditional Hobart welcome and to relaxing and celebrating their experiences.
From start to finish, the fleet sails past some of the most beautiful land- and seascapes found anywhere in the world. The New South Wales coastline is a mixture of sparkling beaches, coastal townships and small fishing villages. Yet, for most of the race south the yachts can be anywhere between a few and up to 40 nautical miles offshore.
Types of yacht in competition
The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is an egalitarian event, attracting yachts as small as 30-footers (9m) and as big as 100-footers (30.48m), sailed by crews who range from weekend club sailors to professionals from the America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race circuits.
The Rolex Sydney Hobart is a classic distance ocean race open to anyone who owns or charters a yacht that qualifies for this challenging event and which meets all the safety requirements of a Category 1 race.
In the earliest years, yachts were built from timber, and were heavy displacement cutters, sloops, yawls, schooners or ketches designed more for cruising than racing. The increasing popularity of the sail south to Hobart quickly began to attract new and innovative designs and ideas in boat- building, sails and rigs. Dacron sails and aluminium masts replaced canvas and timber in the early 1950s. Then came boats built of GRP (glass reinforced plastic) or fibreglass, as it is more commonly known.
The space age has had a significant spin-off for yacht racing, first in the America’s Cup and then in the design and construction of ocean racing yachts, introducing composite construction using Kevlar, carbon fibre, and other manmade fibres and moulding the hulls in high-tech autoclaves (ovens).
Over the past few years, composites have been used successfully to build yacht hulls, masts and spars and in the construction of working sails (mainsails and genoas/ jibs). Maxis such as ICAP Leopard, Wild Oats XI and Alfa Romeo II are examples of a quasi-total use of carbon fibre in their hulls, masts, booms and working sails.
Nowadays, the fleet in the Rolex Sydney Hobart is virtually entirely composed of sloops (mainsail and one foresail – genoa or jib), although several of the maxi yachts with a big fore triangle (between the foredeck, the forestay and the mast) are successfully using two headsails on close reaching races, theoretically making them cutters.
In 2009, the CYCA increased the maximum overall length limit to 30.48 metres, bringing the event in line with other major yachting events such as the Rolex Fastnet Race and Rolex Middle Sea Race. There is no upper speed limit – just the maximum length limit – enabling boats to sail without a handicap restriction that may previously have limited sail area, the use of water ballast, canting keels or mast height. So every year one of the latest breed of 100-footers appears on the start line, a race record is on the cards. In the end, though, a fast passage is always dependent on favourable weather – reaching or running conditions – for most of the 628-nautical mile course.
A strong fleet is lining up for the 2010 race and overall victory will be as hard as ever to predict. There are five maxi (72 to 100 feet) entries to date: Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI (AUS), current course record holder, along with Grant Wharrington’s Wild Thing (AUS), Ludde Ingvall’s Yuuzoo (AUS), Peter Millard & John Honan’s Lahana (AUS), Sean Langman’s Investec Loyal (AUS) and Jim Cooney’s Brindabella (AUS). A number of mini-maxis (60 to 72 feet) including Matt Allen’s Ichi Ban (AUS), Niklas Zennstrom’s Ràn (GBR), Alan Brierty’s Limit (AUS), Stephen Ainsworth’s Loki (AUS), Leo Rodriguez’s Telcoinabox Merit (AUS), Andrew Wenham’s Southern Excellence (AUS) and Rick Christian’s The Stick (AUS). Amongst the 50-footers, the standouts are: Chris Bull’s Jazz (AUS), Michael Hiatt’s Living Doll (AUS), Colin Woods’ Pretty Fly III (AUS), Syd Fischer’s Ragamuffin (AUS), Robert Date’s Scarlet Runner (AUS) and Geoff Boettcher’s Secret Men’s Business 3.5 (AUS). Only a fool would dismiss the possibility for a small boat to win this race, despite the number of “big-boat” entries. The weather treats everyone with equal disdain. The 2009 race winner was the First 40 Two True and Andrew Saies is back again this year.
Info from the media kit by Rolex
Photo by: Rolex / Carlo Borlenghi
