2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

Post by J.D. »

Watch this from about 27:30:

https://au.sports.yahoo.com/videos/watc ... to-hobart/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We all know how fast Comanche was in the early stages, setting a new record for getting out of the harbour but watch what Ken Read does to Mark Richards in the pre-start and watch how well Richards recovers. It wasn't really enough because Comanche hit the line travelling about as fast as you could reasonably expect in a down wind start (they are extremely difficult to judge).
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

Post by wobblysauce »

Did not see the start, woo close call..

Comanche was flying.. though atm 2kt slower then Oats.

With the Camera operator on-board, what is the prep time for them and crew to get to know each other? weeks out, or on the day.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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No idea but I've formally voiced my opposition to that practice.

Comanche is currently 16 nm behind Oats and traveling at double her speed. She made massive gains overnight but with 51 nm to go, I don't think she has any chance of catching her (since she will have to go through the same wind pattern).

The start is always tight. Massed starts are one of the great adrenaline rushes you will ever have. Comanche had the added assistance of Jimmy Spithill on board and he knows a thing or two about starts. They drew Oats across the course for the sucker punch and although it worked, they recovered well. Comanche kept her rights (Rule 11) before and after she turned back. It was a clever tactic and it worked well. Ragamuffin did much the same thing to Loyal with a bit more success but Loyal was in a lot of dirty air over there.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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The handicap race has been amazing. The favourites are nowhere near the top, whereas, this time 24 hours ago, they were all over it. Current leader is an old S&S 34 I knew years ago and in fact, the top four spots are all old boats. The northerly last night really threw the cat among the pigeons.

All but one have now cleared Gabo Island.

I think Ragamuffin100 might have a problem. She shouldn't be that far back, especially given her speed in the early stages.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Comanche has made up 6 nm on Oats in less than an hour! Wild Oats XI is about to make her turn into Storm Bay. She is doing only 5.5 knots to Comanche's 14.5 but I still don't believe Comanche will get past her. She should beat Oats on handicap though.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Comanche(9.2kt) is 11nm behind Oats(10.6kt), tough call to catch Oats from Tasman Island.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Both boats now around Tasman Island. Looks like it was very light in there.

I would put Wild Oats about an hour ahead of Comanche at this stage. Storm Bay is notoriously flukey but I don't see it influencing the result.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Comanche has just powered up big time. I still don't think she'll catch Wild Oats but they're going to give it a crack. I would.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Wild Oats XI has just taken line honours as Comanche rounds the Iron Pot. Neither will stand a chance on corrected time though.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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3rd is going to be interesting.

Rag, is 11nm back but going 6kt faster, then Rio.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Rags is averaging 26 knots! the only time I've heard of a faster average was last year when Loyal was averaging 28.2 knots. At the moment, the best prospect for third (LH) is probably Black Jack.
Last edited by J.D. on Sun Dec 28, 2014 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Here's a sobering thought; current leader on handicap is a boat which was built in 1932. I doubt she's going to win because, even though she's averaging 9 knots at the moment, she'd have to be in by 02:30 on Tuesday morning. Not convinced that will happen. I think the winner will be decided before then.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Rags is still averaging 26 knots and has been for the last hour! Amazing performance. Looks like they finally got her going. I wonder what her peak speeds are like. If she keeps up that pace she will be a good chance for third on Line Honours. But that's the only good news because she's last on handicap.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Latest report is that the New Zealand VO70 Giacomo has been dismasted. Everyone reportedly safe.

Disappointing for those guys.

This was Groupama 4 back in her days as the winner of the Volvo Ocean Race in 2011-2012.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Quick update before I got to bed.

Poor ol' Wedgetail can't take a trick. After losing her mast over the side last year, the Queensland-based RP55 has had to retire again with mast damage. I don't think it's quite as catastrophic as the D2 failure they suffered last year as they rounded Tasman Island but it's obviously disappointing for them. I posted some shots here after last year's race:

http://www.arseforums.com/phpBB/viewtop ... 26&t=18892" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Scroll to the bottom of that page.

Meanwhile there's an absolute war going on in the middle of Storm Bay between Rio100, Ragamuffin100 and Black Jack. At the moment it looks like Rio100 will get it done but Black Jack is traveling well and nothing is decided. They are almost too close to separate at the moment. Current prediction is that, whatever their line honours position, they are going to get spanked on handicap.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Less then 1nm between Rio(1.2kt), Black Jack(1.2kt) and Rag(1.4kt).
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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As predicted, this is turning into a small boat race. At the moment, the honours for handicap are being fought out between some of the oldest and smallest boats. The leading boat at the moment is Maluka of Kermandie, which is the oldest in the fleet, built in 1932. Second placed Quickpoint Azzurro is a 1970s S&S 34. The boat I was hoping for, Bruce Taylor's RP40 Chutzpah (number 6, not 8, as previously reported) has been pipped at the post by Roger Hickman's Wild Rose so the best she can place is 2nd. Let's see what happens when the Derwent goes quiet again tonight. It's going to be a long night for some.

Just for the record, Giacomo's New Zealand owner, Jim Delegat, believes that replacing the mast and lost sails from his VO70 could cost as much as $400,000. There are some 2nd hand masts around from the last Volvo Races but they aren't necessarily optimal for that boat. Race insurance will pay for whatever he needs to do but there will be a big excess. While Delegat says he will be back, he and his crew have other plans for next year.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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JD, given Comanche's performance, worth the outlay?
I know the Syd - Hob is only one fixture on the ocean racers circuit, also boats can grow in their performance, and never discount luck.
But, still if you had that loose cash, what would you rate it?
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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That depends on what you mean Carl. Would Jim Clark be disappointed? I wouldn't think so.

Build and development programs for these things are astronomically expensive, however you do it. By almost any measure, Comanche did very well. It stayed in one piece and got everyone to Hobart. But I think the conditions worked against them. The crew of Wild Oats is as good as it gets, in terms of ocean racing. Just to have people like Iain Murray, Juan Vila, Darren Senogles and Robbie Naismith on board, some on a regular basis, is a sign of how well prepared she is.

But the conditions worked in her favour. It isn't unfair to say that a few of Oats' wins have suited lighter weather yachts, rather than heavier weather ones. The Sydney-Hobart is not usually a light weather race. As I surmised, the main reason Oats got away from Comanche was that she got a lucky break with a wind pattern which favoured her alone. These things happen. Under other weather conditions, the result would have been reversed. Her recovery was awesome. It's also worth remembering that this was Comanche's first serious race so they are still going to need time to find out what makes her go fast. Her design is not optimised for the Sydney-Hobart either. It's more of a general purpose ocean racing yacht which will do very well in the TransAt or TransPac and Newport-Bermuda races and probably the Fastnet.

I've got a few more ideas but I'll post them later. I have to go to work.
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Ta, sort of what I thought, and heard a few commentators saying it wasn't an ideal race selection..
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Re: 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

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Well, Chutzpah managed to get second. Much as it's a great achievement by Bruce Taylor and his crew, they wouldn't be happy with it. At this stage there is only one result which would satisfy them.

So back to the earlier question and in this, I'll refer to everything in terms of line honours, rather than race wins. I guess everyone here realises they're not the same thing...

Wild Oats has pretty much had a lot of things go her way in her career and without taking too much away from them, they have been a lucky boat. Some boats are like that. But with two triple crowns under her keel, it's not all luck. Sooner or later though, her run will come to an end. Had the weather been different, Comanche would have been a long way ahead. And don't discount Loyal either. Even if Comanche doesn't come back, Loyal is a very quick boat which would have a chance in any fleet. As Mark Richards has said before, the boats at the front end of this fleet are all capable of covering this course in 24 hours. It's unlikely but it isn't impossible. At the moment, the race record is a bit over 42 hours. Looked at through the prism of this year's race, it's not that big a deal. In less than ideal conditions, Oats still managed to get within 8 hours of that time.

So go back to the start on Sydney Harbour and look how fast Comanche was traveling. Loyal would normally revel in those conditions but she got stuck in some bad air and was slow, even being beaten to the turning mark by Ragamuffin. Once out in the ocean, she started to show her mettle and actually led the fleet for a while. Rags was ahead of Oats for a while too. We have yet to see the best of Loyal.

We all knew what would happen when it went light but I expected Comanche to surrender her lead a lot earlier than she did. But she held Oats down for about five or six hours longer and Loyal hit something and had to retire. If you watched what they were doing relative to the wind patterns, you could see where it all went right for Oats and wrong for everyone else. There couldn't have been more than a mile in it. They got on the right side of a wind pattern that nobody else got and they stayed in it for the rest of the day, going from a 1 nm deficit (which they made up before the shift) to a 40 nm lead at sunset. Some of that was to do with light air performance but I would not have expected to see anything more than a one or two knot difference in speed in normal circumstances.

This is the sort of thing that drives sailors nuts. In light air you see the wind on the water. You see your opponent get into the pattern and you think, "That's going to hit us soon and we'll be off" and it doesn't happen. The more you seem to be sailing towards the dark band on the water, the more it seems to stay in the same relative place while your opponent disappears into the distance. It's like chasing a carrot on the end of a stick. Before this happened Oats was traveling maybe half to one knot faster. After that she was doing double Comanche's speed.

Then there was the breeze which filled in overnight and pushed Comanche back into contention again. Of her 40 nm deficit, she made up 30. This is another one of those infernal "ifs". If the breeze had filled in the way it did from the north an hour earlier, I have no doubt she would have caught Wild Oats and passed her before Tasman Island. But the plain fact is, it didn't happen. But getting beaten into port by 40 minutes was also enough to snuff out her hopes of beating Oats on handicap.

Remember; Comanche was built with record breaking in mind. She has only one powered winch and that is for furling headsails. Everything else in on coffee grinders, which haven't been seen on a maxi for a long time. So why the return to "old" technology? Well, a lower handicap is part of it but Jim Clark has made it clear that he wants this boat to break records and powered winches are not eligible for some of them. Volvo racers have the same systems.

It was skipper Ken Read who said that this was not an ideal race for Comanche to open her account but it was certainly worth a try. It was almost certainly Kristy's idea and I guess she will want to come back eventually. She was originally supposed to do the race herself but pulled out on Christmas night. This is not a bad thing when you contrast it with Anthony Bell putting people like boxer Danny Green and surfer Sally Fitzgibbons on Loyal. Anything which draws attention to the sport is probably worth doing but I suspect Kristy is a little more serious about sailing (she used to sail Lasers).

In the end, you can't deny that Wild Oats XI sailed very well. Equally, you can't deny the element of luck. Just ask Bruce Taylor.
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