red steering wheel while shouting
“tacking” to the 20 crew, to turn
the 100-footer just ahead of the
approaching Comanche. “Just ahead” is
a very ambiguous phrase and one that
Spithill on Comanche saw as tacking
‘on his water’, a dangerous zone within
his vessel’s close proximity. However,
if the distance had been deemed safe,
this manoeuvre would have then made
Oats the right of way boat, and putting
the onus on the oncoming Comanche
to keep clear.
Around this stage a red protest
flag was hoisted on Comanche’s wide
stern and they confirmed by radio
that they would be lodging a protest
in writing upon arrival in Hobart, as
required by the racing rules. Given
this infringement took place within
the Harbour racecourse, the Cruising
Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA) rules
applying to this particular race required
that Oats do two penalty turns (
degrees) before the offshore mark in
order to exonerate itself. Canting its
keel hard, this would have been a five
to 10 minutes manoeuvre. The ability
to do this ‘safely’, as required by the
rules, is questionable given the amount
of vessels around but for whatever
reasons Oats stood on and continued
past us on the media boat, shortly
followed by Comanche, clearly flying its
red protest flag.
Richards, when asked later if he
regretted not doing the penalty turns
said: “Everyone’s a genius in hindsight.
It’s just one of those things. We spoke
about it at the time but in the heat of
battle you think it was different than
what it was. When we looked at the
footage afterwards we went ‘hmmm,
that was a bit too close guys’. But that’s
the decision we made and you’ve got to
live by your decisions.”
As these and the other two
supermaxis, Black Jack and defending
champion InfoTrack (formerly
Perpetual Loyal) swept past us, they
unfurled their huge Code O running
sails and sped south in the 15-knot
northeasterly.THE CORINTHIANS
Behind them came the maxis and
then the mid-sized fleet that included
an armada of TP52s.These Transpacs
specifically designed for the downhill
run from Los Angeles to Hawaii arenow popular in Australia. The newest
boat in the 2017 Sydney Hobart fleet
was among them, the 2017-launched
Ichi Ban of veteran Sydney Hobart
racer Matt Allen would lead them
all home and finally give the former
banker a handicap win on his 28th
Sydney Hobart with this Botin Partners
designed TP52.
Behind came the Corinthians – the
amateur sailors sailing the usual
variety of production cruiser-racers,
until at the very back of the fleet,
the Scandinavian-built Freya, whose
origins go back to the Viking age. Just
ahead of it was the smallest yacht in
the fleet, the Army sponsored X. These
smaller boats would spend five days at
sea, only reaching Hobart on December- For the ordinary sailors – like myself
and many others – reaching Hobart is
the main goal and anything else is a
bonus.
THE GLADIATORS
At the front of the fleet, the supermaxis
powered south on the rhumb line
to Hobart until Comanche headed
offshore to gain something from the
south flowing East Australian Current.18 trade aboat.com.au