Sydney - Hobart

[J.D.]

Well, the weather forecast is for two days of 30kt nor-easterly winds. If the sea state is good those things will fly. Though it's highly unlikely, they are theoretically capable of doing the 615 NM course in a bit over a day but in practice it never quite works that way*. 1 day 14 hours is more realistic. This forecast may not work out but you can be they'll be trucking for the first 24 hrs at least.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... _TR-4toS0w

This is the race's yacht tracker. It's brilliant and you can tell by looking at it whether the record will fall or not.

*The world 24 hour record is held by a Volvo Ocean 70 from this year's race. Ericsson 4 covered 602NM in a 24 hour period, an average speed of over 25 kts (46.3 kph). The maxis are theoretically faster.

[wobblysauce]

meh ... another boring race... it is nothing like the storms of the one a few years ago

[J.D.]

Yeah but 6 people died in that one Wobbly...

Anything where the race record is under threat is exciting to me.

The forecast has been revised so the record probably won't go this time.

[AstrO]

Dakar = Win
Sydney - Hobart = Fail

Can't say I've ever been a fan of the Sydney to Hobart though, maybe I'm missing something???

[DexterPunk]

I reckon id love being in the race, if i knew how to sail. Id probably have a lot more interest in it if i understood it all. Im sure theres a lot more too it than just throwing up a sail and cruising down to Hobart.

[J.D.]

Can't say I've ever been a fan of the Sydney to Hobart though, maybe I'm missing something???

Yep: you are...

[r8response]

The only time i find the Syd to Hobart interesting is just before and after the start, when the boats big and small are jostling for position closest to the starting line. Beyond that, its quite a snore fest

[wobblysauce]

the only time the boats are fun to watch is when every thing is going wrong and all hands on deck so it don't flip.... but watching the super maxis turn at the heads and just floor it

though i would love to watch Dakar

[J.D.]

Well, fellas, if you're that dead set against it, feel free to totally tune out...as I would for the Paris-Dakar.

[wobblysauce]

even better... i went through and played some steam games i got ..

[J.D.]

So for those who are actually interested, I somehow left out the yacht tracker from my original post. Here it is:

http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/yacht_tracker.asp

[Bauer]

So for those who are actually interested, I somehow left out the yacht tracker from my original post. Here it is:

http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/yacht_tracker.asp

cheers JD

I will be tuning in - not as a sailor but a sucker for tradition and an appreciation of the effort they will put in. Being in Tassie probably helps embrace the tradition of the race too

[J.D.]

Tassie - especially Hobart - is the best place in the world in Late December. I'm usually there covering the finish but got black balled from that this year. Ah me...with The Drunken Admiral, Taste of Tasmania and a bunch of nice pubs near the waterfront, Hobart's the best!

[w00dsy]

So for those who are actually interested, I somehow left out the yacht tracker from my original post. Here it is:

http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/yacht_tracker.asp

cheers JD

I will be tuning in - not as a sailor but a sucker for tradition and an appreciation of the effort they will put in. Being in Tassie probably helps embrace the tradition of the race too

buzz down to hobart in the new car and take some pics with the new camera While i'm not really a fan of sailing, i used to like watching the boats go through the heads when they did the melb-hobart. There's something almost romantic about watching a stack of yachts all together. It's hard to appreciate until you see it in the flesh.

[J.D.]

Well, Wharington's out which will surprise nobody.

It was amazing they even made it to the start line. To try to get a new mast working properly takes weeks. It has to work with the sails and they were cut to suit the old mast. You always find there are soft spots here and stiff sections there and you have tune everything. To attempt the Sydney Hobart without this testing behind them was more than a risk and wisely, Wharington thought the better of it. Disappointing though.

What I didn't know was that it was Alfa Romeo's spare mast! That would have made things doubly difficult. Alfa Romeo has a five spreader rig. Etihad Stadium (arguably the silliest name I've ever heard of for a boat) was designed for only three plus jumpers. Truth is, once he actually gets it going, the boat will probably be an improvement on what he had but that will take the rest of the summer. Anyone who has ever had to tune a rig knows how much of a black art it is.

Then there's the effort they went to. It probably dwarfed every bit of the sponsorship they got from Etihad Stadium. Creighton's spare mast was cut in two and flown to Australia where it was re-assembled. This is just mad. They would have to insert a plug which would make the mast stiffer in the middle than it was designed to be. That would make it harder to tune. Creighton even offered Wharington some sails he knew would fit the mast.

Still, I suppose it's better than what happened a few years ago when they hit a sunfish and lost the keel. The boat ended up capsized and drifting towards New Zealand. The lessons of sailing are often learned hard.

[wobblysauce]

for a part of it though.. at least they made the start for sponsors

[J.D.]

Yep: you always do your bit for your sponsors.

Meanwhile, here's my pick for handicap honours (the actual winner). This is RÁN:

http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/news.asp?key=4573

This 72' Judel/Vrolijk design is owned by Niklas Zennstrom, one of the owners of Skype. Although handicap honours is only of interest to yachties, RÁN is an amazing boat and fast as fuck. She gives away 28' to Alfa Romeo, Leopard and Wild Oats but she's the newest generation, very light and extremely well sailed. She has virtually no sheets or halyard tails on the deck with everything routed through troughs or underneath. This makes it extremely clean and a lot safer for crews to work around.

http://www.greenmarine.co.uk/siteimages ... 9-0266.jpg

[wobblysauce]

Ran is in 4th atm, so it could very well beat the pants off them in the handycap race

[DexterPunk]

Can a boat ever be male?

[J.D.]

Christ this is boring, even for me. They're only doing 5 kts. Wild Oats is doing 1.6! I reckon they've made a blunder by going so far inshore. By 10:30 this morning they were almost becalmed off Eden. The ones who went further out to sea have more wind, which I expected but they will have to make up whatever distance they have traveled. That's known as VMG or velocity made good.

Dex: I have never really understood the male-female thing with boats. An awful lot of languages, particularly those like French and German from which English is derived, don't have a "neuter" gender. So I'm guessing it comes from that originally. But nautical traditions die hard.

[wobblysauce]

JD i did tell you it was going to be boring ... though they said the wind might change today and then have them at full speed

as for the sex of a ship it was back when they had figureheads, most were female some male and that normally had to do with the name and sex of a ship

[J.D.]

Well, Alfa Romeo has found some wind. Still not up to hull speed yet but they are doing double the speed of their rivals. As soon as they get past Gabo Island they should get more.

[wobblysauce]

yep .. looks like oats wont make it another win unless a turn of events happen

[J.D.]

Well, all over for another year:

http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStor ... 11490.html

The best boat won and Tasmania's history of cannibalism is a hot topic around of Constitution Dock as the also-rans go hungry:

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/na ... 5814166248

The slowest race in 10 years but at least everyone is safe for the moment. The last boat isn't due in until the next decade!

These can be great races because they are always tactical but in deference to the average spectator, they don't usually look very exciting. For a sailor they are both difficult and frustrating as you sit there day after day watching the sails flog and not able to do much. Wild Oats' mistake seems to have been going inshore at Merimbula looking for wind. You don't usually find it in there but they obviously knew something I don't. They sailed into a hole. If the same line up starts next year it will be a better race for sure.

Now for the battle for handicap honours (the REAL winner).

Meanwhile the website's yacht tracker seems to have gone missing in action...