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back of your mind and get on with the race. SH: These boats are designed to be pushed harder than the VO70s and not fail. If there is a failure in that elevated red zone can that expose the crew to even greater risk? CN: Absolutely and we discovered that. In the past on a VO70 you couldn’t sail the boat properly in 40kt but we quickly discovered these VO65s could be pushed seriously hard in 40kt+ of wind; but the flip side is on a robust boat like this, if it does sustain damage you have to slow the boat up and you are extremely vulnerable to sea state. So I am unsure of the net result overall. A VO70 you wouldn’t dream of pressing on in that 40kt+ zone.
But the VO65 package is great, sound and strong – although when you are wallowing in 40kt with crew on deck and waves breaking over the top of the boat from behind… that is not a good situation and we learned that in leg 3. SH: Safety gear? CN: Obviously everyone is clipped on all the time. And the water coming over the deck isn’t extreme, it’s uncomfortable but it is usually broken up by the winches and coachroof. The behaviour of the boats is a little ropy at times, when they get close to a Chinese gybe – then when the rudders drop back into the water the boat wants to get a little unstable… But as long as the drivers are aware it’s OK. SH: One thought is we may see some engineering issues as the fleet approaches the end of its second lap of the planet. CN: It’s interesting when you say that. There were keel ram issues on Dongfeng late on leg 3. That is stuff no one foresaw and just the fact that it happened and I dare say is still unexplained, that shows there could be more issues as the race goes on. We don’t know how to fix them and we are not about to get all the rams replaced – so we carry on, pushing hard. SH: The VOR is at a critical time in its life… CN: From what I have seen it is at one of the most critical stages of its existence. Yes, some big calls need to be made but until these are made we need some stability. Certainly, the key thing going for this race is Volvo in terms of
their support and their history in this event. If there were a lot of similar races in the world this event could fall over, but the race that this is, with the people involved here and its history, I think it still has a bright future. There is a lot of other sailing to be done, certainly much easier than this, but there is a magnetic attraction to this race and that is why I keep coming back again and again. You could have an easier existence but that is not what I’m about – I would rather be here doing this.
Rows and records The 73rd Rolex Sydney Hobart was a cracker, a soft start with a hard finish: 102 boats on the startlines with four Australian-owned 100-footers jostling for the gun. Jim Cooney’s LDV Comanche and Peter Harburg’s Black Jack got the best start at the pin end in the light east-noreaster, followed by Christian Beck’s InfoTrack, and way back from the line the Oatley family’s Wild Oats XIwith skipper Mark Richards having a shocker of a start. And it was only about to get worse. As Black Jack led out of the Heads Wild Oats tried to tack in front
of Comanche, but hitting two waves going into the turn killed her speed and left her very close to Comanche’s bow. There was much arm waving on Comanche as she was forced to luff up and the red flag was unfurled on the backstay. Jimmy Spithill helming LDV Comanche has been racing in the America’s Cup with closing speeds of over 60kt so he was very comfortable assessing the risk as Wild Oats approached on port tack… ‘I thought maybe they were thinking they could cross in front and
said to Kelvin Harrap that we are looking good, that Wild Oats weren’t going to make it and we may have a protest on our hands. Then at the last minute they started to turn and I saw skipper Ricko have a look, then walk to the other side of the boat, and I knew straight away they would foul us. ‘We were having a hard time ourselves trying to get out; Sydney Heads on the best of days is pretty unforgiving, but on Boxing Day
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with all the spectators in less than 10kt of wind – mate, it’s a bumpy place to be. It is tough keeping the boats moving and because of that you usually add more time and distance to do anything.’ With such a high-risk manoeuvre all eyes were on Wild Oats to
see if they would do a 720, but navigator Ian Burns reported they didn’t believe there was an infringement and were not concerned – and here is the rub. It is always easy to make a judgment from your comfy lounge chair, but the Channel 7 camera footage from the stern of Wild Oats shows the mid-bow area of LDV Comanche, meaning the long red bowsprit out of frame must be overlapped and to windward of Wild Oats, now accelerating slowly out of the tack; and this, along with the semaphoring and shouting from the Comanche crew, surely must have raised some doubts in the Oats afterguard… and that penalty turns with the assistance of powered winches to rapidly trim sails and lift the daggerboards to speed the process would be wise. Clearly not. So with everyone focused on the racecourse it was time to accel-
erate down the NSW coast, with a dream forecast unfolding as the wind swung aft and increased for the great run south. Just 15 hours into the race Comanche was already more than 50 miles south of Gabo Island, humming along at 20-25kt under fractional code zero, with the leading six yachts all ahead of the record time. What was not expected was that the slender Reichel/Pugh 100s
Wild Oats and Black Jack would be able to stay in touch with the powerful Comanche in these conditions, with Wild Oats XI even taking time out of the race leader overnight, as Jimmy Spithill on Comanche explained. ‘We had the FRO up then we triple-headed later in Bass Strait.
Brad Jackson and I were on the same watch and we were having a hard time keeping the boat up to the polars, as we would get it going and then run into the back of some pretty solid waves. Wild Oats and some of the other 100s had a bigger sail up and were sailing a lower mode while we were sailing hot and fast and it wasn’t fully paying off; we would hit a wave, park up, with masses of water over the deck and nowhere to go. That was when we saw Oats doing so well.’ By day two the closer the fleet got to Tasmania the more breeze
they saw, hovering around the 25-35kt range, making for a wet ride – perfect conditions to dig the bow in, load up the boat and blow out sails, which is exactly what Matt Allen and crew did on Ichi Ban. Going into the first evening the Botín-designed TP52 had a slight lead on the other 52s, but 12 hours later the crew had blown out the A3 and A6. They then sailed under fractional code zero but the angle was too high, meaning their earlier gains evaporated, as Matt Allen explained, ‘When I had the A4 made we really beefed it up, with extra material, bigger patches and the foot built higher even though it reduced the area of the sail. ‘It was a decision we made a year ago but we didn’t do that with
the A6 and that blew out. That really kind of restarted our race. We waited for the wind to drop a little, reset the A4 and decided we needed to run with it all the way until we hit the right angle to gybe to Tasman Island, which was at a point where the A4 is pretty marginal. Eventually the expected shift came through and we were able to drop the A4 and replace it with the fractional zero, which allowed us to come in really hot to Tasman, with helmsmen Anthony Merrington, Wade Morgan and Gordon Maguire pushing hard.’ Everyone was pushing hard. The helming duties on LDV
Comanchewere shared between Casey Smith, Kelvin Harrap, Jimmy Spithill, Ryan Godfrey, Dirk de Ridder and Brad Jackson and all struggled as the big red and black maxi ploughed into the backs of waves, loading up an already super-loaded boat. There was huge talent onboard, but Spithill credits Brad Jackson and his vast ocean racing experience with some of the key gybes, super-critical in 35kt+ where breaking battens and sail damage are a serious risk. The Comanche crew still saw gusts close to 40kt coming into
Tasman Light, so believed there must be wind in the Derwent up to the finish line. They blast-reached towards the Iron Pot in 20kt, only to feel it slowly easing. Once closer in they could see it was like a mirage with no breeze at all – a complete glass-off.
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