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The low pressure system
remnant of a tropical cyclone crossing the continent is
setting up a tricky wind pattern for the start of the Rolex Sydney Hobart
race today, but it is a forecast that
suits Alfa Romeo and Wild Oats over their chief rival
Leopard.
While the scenario is still changing, pockets of light
breeze to be negotiated between two major wind systems look
to have removed the prospects of a record-breaking run by
one of the hi-tech collection of maxi yachts that are in the fleet.
Barry Hanstrum,
senior forecaster for the NSW Bureau of Meteorology,
predicts that the fleet of 100 boats will probably start in
a light to moderate southerly, which would mean a
spectacular spinnaker start in Sydney Harbour on Saturday,
then a beat to windward in 10-20 knots as the fleet reaches
the open sea.
While the wind would back to the east - northeast offshore,
a low pressure trough would create lighter air inshore. A
west to southwest change on Sunday night in the Bass Strait
of 20-30 knots would continue into Monday, December 28.
Yendys' Will Oxley, one of the fleet's top navigators with
11 Hobart races on his CV, sees the situation on the first
day as even trickier. "It looks quite important to
stay in the east; in the west you are likely to run out of
breeze earlier. The big boats will get into the nor'easterly
breeze, clear of the trough, first."
But Oxley believes the big boats will run out of breeze and
"park" in the lee of the Tasmanian coast. "I think the race
is going to be won or lost off the Tasmanian coast with the
transitioning of that light wind area into the new breeze
that comes on the 28th."
Against the forecast and form shown in the Rolex Rating
warm-up regattas, the two well-prepared, settled, Reichel/Pugh
100s Wild Oats XI (Bob Oatley) and Alfa Romeo (Neville
Crichton) will lead the charge of the seven maxis towards
the line honours finishing gun on Battery Point, Hobart.
The forecast, with its mix of light weather, does not suit
Mike Slade's Farr 100 ICAP Leopard, a great upwind
performer. "We'd like strong upwind for the first 12 hours
and then when you look down to Gabo Island going into Bass
Strait, there's pockets there of intense weakness and you
could sit there for five hours," said Slade.
"I've done that in this race in the 1990's and the boys that
had gone offshore in a different breeze came in six hours
ahead of us."
Top prospects for the race's major prize, the Tattersall's
Cup for the overall winner on IRC handicap, are to be found
in IRC division one, the 50 to 63 footers.
Among these are the TP52s, including last year's
Tattersall's Cup winner Quest (Bob Steel), Ragamuffin (Syd
Fischer), Cougar II (Alan Whiteley), all Farr designs.
Others include the Reichel/Pugh near sisterships Loki
(Stephen Ainsworth), R/P63 and Limit (Alan Brierty), R/P62;
Farr 55 Living Doll (Michael Hiatt); R/P55 Yendys (Geoff
Ross) and the UK-based Judel/Vrolijk 72, Ran (Niklas
Zennstrom), the overall winner of this year's Rolex Fastnet
Race.
Ran's tactician Adrian Stead, who has sailed in two Rolex
Sydney Hobart Races, said of the official race forecast, "We
knew it was going to be difficult getting out and away from
Sydney depending on where the trough lines up."
He said the weather was still evolving. "It's not a
straight-forward race, so that means we've got to think a
lot. We're going to see a range of conditions, which is good
because there are a lot of boats here that are probably fast
in one condition, slow in others. So I think it could be a
well-balanced race."
Other overseas boats
Sole American entry is Rapture, another 100-footer, a
Farr-designed performance cruiser, owned by Brook Lenfest
and crewed by a mix of international and Australian sailors. Since launching in 2007, she has raced and cruised more than
24,000 miles on a world circumnavigation. In Sydney, her
crew has stripped out much of the cruising gear to reduce weight.
Lenfest, who competed in the 2002 RSH in his previous yacht,
a Swan 86, enjoys the challenge of the Rolex Sydney Hobart
Race. "We have had a lot of races around the world sailed in
lighter winds that are very predictable," he says. "We like
the unpredictability of the Hobart race and we like a lot of
wind."
Back for the second successive year is 41-Sud, an
Archambault 40 from New Caledonia, skippered by Jean-Luc
Esplaas, who with the Young 11 Noumea, survived the 1998
Sydney Hobart Race storm to place third in their division.
Last year by contrast, 41-Sud slowed for 11 hours in calms
off the Tasmanian coast to place seventh in division.
Also back for more after suffering in those calms last year
is Pinta-M, a 1972 vintage aluminium Sparkman & Stephens 41,
owned and skippered by Atse Blei from the Netherlands, which
has raced successfully in North Sea events and finished
fifth overall in IRC on corrected time in the 2005 Rolex
Fastnet Race.
Pinta-M placed third in their division last year after being
becalmed for a frustrating hour, only three miles from the
finish. Blei decided to leave the boat in Australia to
contest this year's race, hoping for the robust upwind
conditions that she enjoys most.
The Spanish entry Charisma, owned by banker Alejandro Perez
Calzada from Barcelona, is on an around-the-world cruising
mission with racing in major events along the way. This is
another S&S IOR boat from the 1970's, which under original
owner Jesse Phillips raced for the USA in the Admiral's Cup
international teams series in 1973 and 1975.
Calzada bought the sturdy aluminium-hulled Charisma from a
Seattle owner in 2003, restored her to better than new
condition, fitted a new carbon mast and rig and began his
global racing program with the 2007 Rolex Fastnet Race. She
sailed the Newport Bermuda Race in 2008 and this year won
her division in the Los Angeles-Honolulu Transpac Race.
A fleet of 100 yachts will compete in this year's race,
which starts at 1300 AEDT today (26 December 2009). The Rolex
Sydney Hobart fleet will have crews representing the USA,
UK, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, and New Caledonia
as well as every Australian state.
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