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any chance of winning this one. For about two and a half days we didn’t see a boat at all – and then we were match-racing Celestial!’ Ichi Ban certainly had some powerful decision-makers onboard –
having Will Oxley, Noel Drennan and Gordon Maguire in your after- guard, with 72 Hobart races between them, is some asset… For the double-handers there was a multitude of emotions. Joy
for all making it to Hobart or relief for making it back to Sydney after retiring from a bruising first encounter with this course… above all with the hope organisers might give them a chance at the overall victory in 2022, having this time been excluded from that possibility. Mark Bradford, skipper of Black Jack, summed up the feeling
from the big boat crews by saying the race needed to embrace this form of sailing: ‘We all use control systems to manage all sorts of systems onboard, so having an autopilot is no different from having a canting keel. If someone wins the Sydney to Hobart Race on a two-handed boat, then I will be the first person to shake their hands.’ The Tasmanian pair of John Saul and Rob Gough, sailing their
also failed to raise Celestial on VHF. Having received permission from the race committee, at 00:57
Ichi Ban released a white flare to attract Celestial’s attention but received no response. Again with the race committee’s approval, at 01.20 Ichi Ban fired a red parachute flare, after which Celestial contacted Ichi Ban via handheld VHF on deck at approximately 01.30, confirming that the PLB activation was accidental, and sent a text message to that effect to the race committee via their satellite phone after a satellite call failed. The committee then informed AMSA, and the search and rescue
aircraft was stood down. Celestial asserted that their VHF was turned on at all times, but that their engine and water-maker had been running at the time, and the crew were fatigued and did not hear any attempts to contact them. Twelve other PRBs were accidentally activated during the race,
and in each case the vessel responded to the race committee within 25 minutes, the average response time being 15 minutes. Ichi Ban did not stop racing or alter course as a result of the
incident but claimed the deployment of the two flares temporarily affected their performance. The jury concluded: ‘For the purposes of Rule 31.4 in the SIs,
“listening” is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages, but either the equipment or the procedures onboard Celestial resulted in her failing to maintain a continuous listening watch. It was reasonable for Ichi Ban to assume that Celestial needed help, and that it was possible that their finishing position was made sig- nificantly worse by their compliance with their RRS 1.1 obligation to assist any person or vessel in danger. A breach of this seriousness with its safety implications may warrant a major penalty.’ However, the SIs for the Rolex Sydney-Hobart did offer the jury
some discretion. Finding that the breach was accidental, the jury added 40 minutes to the elapsed time of Celestialas an appropriate penalty in response to the race committee protest. The effect was that Ichi Ban and Celestial swapped places on the IRC podium, giving Ichi Ban the 2021 Rolex Sydney-Hobart overall win with Celestial second and the remarkable Simon Kurts’ S&S 47 Love & War third overall in IRC. Ichi Ban was also awarded a deduction of three minutes from
Sorry I’m late. Joe Harris returns from his solo circumnavigation in 2016 after 152 days at sea – and two months later than he had planned, due to two unscheduled stopovers for repairs. Harris made the decision to go around on his own after the cancellation of the 2013 Global Ocean Race for which he had been preparing
Lombard-designed Akilaria RC2 Sidewinder, claimed double-handed line honours, thrilled about their win and its historic significance. ‘For the CYCA and the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania to absorb two-handed racing is fantastic, you see so much of it in Europe, but to see it finally catch on here is great. ‘We had a really tough first day and a half and then suddenly so
quiet. But plenty of sail changes, plenty of activity. The early part of the race was just really long stints of hand-steering.’ But the big winner in the two-handed division was Jules Hall’s
J/99 Disko Trooper-Contender Sailcloth, second across the line in class and winning her division overall on IRC and ORCi. With the other boats in contention for the Tattersall’s Cup still
at sea and struggling in the lighter conditions, attention turned to the two TP52s, Ichi Ban and Celestial… and the protests. Just before midnight on 27 December the race committee received a phonecall from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) notifying them that a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) assigned to one of the crew on Celestial had been activated. The committee attempted to reach Celestial by satphone but
repeatedly received a ‘call could not be connected’ message. Con- tinuing with their attempts, they asked the closest boat, Ichi Ban, to contact Celestial on VHF16 to clarify their situation. There was no response to these attempts at communication either, which were repeated at five-minute intervals. The TP52 Quest
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their elapsed time in response to their separate claim for redress. This three-minute adjustment would not alone have altered the original finishing positions so it was the race committee protest, not Ichi Ban’s, that created the final result. Matt Allen and crew join Freya and Love & War as the only boats in race history to win the Tattersall Cup three times – an astonishing achievement. Clearly this result was devastating for Sam Haynes and the
Celestial crew, who had sailed the race of their lives. Every time Haynes spoke to the media the emotion was raw in his voice, praising his crew. Celestial asked for the protest to be reopened but the original decision stood. Ocean racing is hard on everyone. The management and oversight
of an offshore fleet make immense demands on all involved, par- ticularly when heavy weather is forecast. The spectre of the 1998 tragedy still hangs over this race – it always will – and so a very high level of safety, particularly with communications, is set and demanded by organisers. To not be able to communicate with a boat when a distress
beacon has activated is truly an appalling feeling. Many here remember it from the 1998 disaster, and some of us recall broken VHF transmissions, then just static from the middle of the Irish Sea in the 1979 Fastnet Race – two events that changed the manage- ment and oversight of offshore racing for ever. The 2021 Rolex Sydney-Hobart was an epic ride south, with
challenges and lessons for all involved. Gun Runner, the smallest boat in the fleet, ran out of fresh water and had to retire, to resupply in Tasmania before sailing on to Hobart to join in the celebrations. The 2022 edition will see all these 100-footers back – possibly more. The double-handed fleet will certainly grow and, with luck and wisdom, will hopefully next time be given a shot at the big prize… Blue Robinson
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