Ref; http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/standings/
29
Minerva
43°15'S 147°55'E
4nm W of Tasman Island
36.7 4.4 221 03:15:16:577.2
30 Dec, 04:16:57 AM
Printable View
Ref; http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/standings/
29
Minerva
43°15'S 147°55'E
4nm W of Tasman Island
36.7 4.4 221 03:15:16:577.2
30 Dec, 04:16:57 AM
and beat her !Quote:
Originally Posted by UncleHo
Minerva finished in 28th spot with a time of 03:16:10:17 at an avergae of 7.1 knots. Finishing time was 30 Dec, 05:10:17 AM
Well done !!!!!
G'day Vlad :)
That's good to know, as they had a good old battle going on for most of the east coast of Tasmania
Went down to the Taste of Tasmania today and went past a few yacht's, look what I found.
Minerva in Hobart.
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Someone you may know.
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2013 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race
Boat: Minerva
Sail number: 6837
Length: 43 feet
Crew: 12 persons
The start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is probably the only time during the year that most people see or hear anything about sailing or yacht racing. On Boxing Day morning there’s some fairly decent coverage on the TV during the build-up to the race and the start itself but it tends to focus only on the giant supermaxis and doesn’t give people much of an idea about what it’s like on board an average boat for average people in this far from average race.
So, I thought I’d take it upon myself to write-up our nautical adventures in the 628 nautical mile (1163km) race on board our beloved Minerva.
BACKGROUND
The boat – Minerva
First things first; an introduction to our home for the next 3-4 days, to give you some context as to the environment we spend the race in. Minerva is a solid racing yacht, and although she’s a few years old now and not made of carbon fibre like the heavily sponsored yachts you might see on the TV or in the paper more often, she suits us very well indeed. She’s on the smaller side of average for this race and while she isn’t a particularly fast boat, she’s got great character and has survived everything we’ve put her through without complaining too much. In short, she’s slow, but she’s tough.
She’s jointly owned by Tim Cox, his son Ed and his nephew Bill. Tim is a former Commodore of the Royal Australian Navy and is the Sydney to Hobart Race Director; as such he doesn’t race with us but the others do - Ed is the skipper and Bill is our Pitman. More on that later.
A little bit about yacht racing….
For those who have not done much or indeed any sailing at all, yacht racing is essentially a simple sport. The boats have a single mast and a single hull and are known as Bermudian Sloops. Using two or sometimes three sails, each boat attempts to go as fast as they can to the finishing line, whether it be a point-to-point race such as the Sydney to Hobart or racing around several markers inside the harbour.
Going as fast as you can in a given direction is achieved by choosing the correct sails for the wind speed and wind direction. In order to maintain optimum speed when either of those two elements change, sails need to be changed as quickly and effectively as possible, usually with a decidedly uncivilised display of shouting and drama from the back of the boat and an efficient amount of quiet control and general impressiveness from the chaps at the business end doing all of the work. More on that later too.
When sailing in an upwind direction we use a small sail at the front called a jib which works like an aeroplane wing to provide lift and accelerate the wind passing behind the mainsail. There are 5 jibs on board for different wind strengths and angles. The shape of the hull helps to use the lift created by the jib and the mainsail to move the boat through the water. The heavy torpedo keel stops the boat from being blown over onto its side.
When sailing in a downwind direction, we hoist the biggest sails we can, called spinnakers, which act like a giant kite, pulling us along. We have three of these on board, again for differing wind strengths and angles. Some boats are specialised to sail fast downwind – they have wide, flat bottoms like surfboards, but this is often at the expense of upwind capability, so the weather conditions in any given race might favour some boats over others.
As yachts come in different shapes and sizes, there are handicapping systems which take into account the boat length, shape, weight, displacement, sail size, mast height, keel weight and depth and dozens of other measurements to help provide a ‘corrected time’ that reveals the boat which sailed the best in any given race.
It’s fairly easy to win the Hobart on line honours. Really, it is. Get a chequebook and write a huge cheque with at least 7 zeros and you’ll have the fastest boat. It’s a far harder task to win a race overall on handicap honours even with professional crew, which brings us nicely onto the most important part of any boat….
The Crew
Rather than describe each of us as individuals, its probably more useful at this point to describe the way in which a yacht crew operates in a race. Using Minerva as an example and working from the back of the boat to the front, the crew positions and jobs are as follows:
• There is one Tactician. It’s their sole job to work out the navigation strategy, tactics and direction of the boat based on the information they have to hand from all the instruments and the computer software available.
• The Helmsman. Steers the boat. Tends to bark orders from his nice, dry spot at the back and thinks he’s important. Bless him. The skipper is usually a helmsman.
• Forward of the Helmsman are sail Trimmers, who continuously tweak and control the shape of the sails for optimum performance. There are jib, spinnaker and mainsail trimmers but each can do the others’ job so they share the load amongst themselves. Getting trim wrong is like driving a car with a flat tyre - you’ll get there, but you’ll be very slow and the steering will feel awful.
• Forward of the Trimmers is the Pitman. The ‘pit’ is the place right in the centre of the boat where all the clutches or ‘jammers’ are housed. These jammers hold in position all the halyards for keeping sails aloft and at the right tension, poles in position, sheet angles where they need to be and reefing lines at the right points. Nothing goes up or down without the Pitman being on his game.
• The ‘Sewer’ role is as bad as it sounds – when the sails come down, they need to get stored below decks in the right order. This is particularly annoying when a wet spinnaker comes down as it needs to be prepared with woollen ties and then stuffed in a particular way into a huge bag ready to go up again for its next hoist. It’s hot and sweaty work and there’s never enough room tin which to do it. People who suffer from seasickness cannot perform this role. I tried it once. Just once. There was a bucket involved within minutes.
• Finally we come to the business end of the boat….the bow. The place where all of the hard work happens and the real heroes ply their trade. Three gallant soldiers; the Bowman, Mid-bow and Mastman spend the entire race dealing with everything at the pointy end of the boat, including all of the irritating voices from the cockpit who think they know best. It’s a foolish helmsman who bellows too much at the Foredeck Union.
• The Mastman is responsible for hoisting and lowering all sails on the boat as quickly and safely as possible. He is the liaison between what’s happening on the bow and the Pitman and Helmsman. Being able to talk fluently to these 3 different species is a challenge of extraordinary proportions. He’s also responsible for the structural integrity of the rigging, positioning of the spinnaker pole, the boom fittings, mainsail reefing and if anything (including the Bowman) needs to be hoisted up the mast, the Mastman does it.
• The Mid-bow is a sail handler who helps change sails. A huge amount of grunt work in the wet, lugging sails from front to back and vice versa and ensuring they’re packed properly.
• The Bowman is the chap right at the front who is responsible for all sail changes, all sheets and braces, all halyards and is the guy who can never win a race but can lose it with a single bad move. It’s the wettest and coldest position on board. A bowman’s knees after a Sydney Hobart are a black and blue thing of tremendous beauty, the bruises worn with pride. It is without a doubt the most important position on any yacht….unless of course you’re a Helmsman in which case you think that title applies to you. Bless.
We operate on a 4-hour watch system during the day and a 3-hour watch system at night. Essentially what this means is that at any given time, half the crew are on deck sailing the boat and the other half are down below, getting sleep in tiny but surprisingly comfortable bunks, or fixing sails, making drinks and food. The other half take over the sailing duties every 3 or 4 hours depending on whether it’s daytime or night.
I used to be a bowman but I’m far wiser these days and have moved back to take the Mastman role, which I’ve been doing for the last 6 years. I’m still, to my knowledge, the most seasick-suffering member of the entire Hobart fleet. Getting sick isn’t in question; it’s simply a matter of when it happens that the boys like to bet on. I’ve tried every single anti-seasickness medication out there, even some of the ones that can’t be obtained in Australia. None have proven effective.
Scheduled Position Reports aka ‘Skeds’
4 times per day (at 12:05, 17:05, 00:05 and 07:05), the Race Control vessel demands that every single vessel report their position. This is for safety reasons – and missing a sked can result in disqualification, so all boats tune in to the chosen VHF radio channel and when their name is read out by Race Control, the Navigator reports the boat’s position in GPS co-ordinates and if anything untoward has occurred, they also report this data. This enables us all to get an idea of who is where and how far ahead or behind we are from the competition.
Ok that’ll do….perhaps now that I’ve prattled on for quite long enough we can get down to the race….
Thursday 26th Dec – BOXING DAY
Up at 7am and full of nerves. The weather forecast looked great for the first two days but horrific for the third as a cold front was due over Tasmania, sweeping across Bass Strait and the system behind it expected to bring very strong winds and gales. I didn’t manage any breakfast….just threw all my gear together, checked the lifejacket, headtorch and knife one more time and walked down to the yacht club.
Unlike the CYCA in Rushcutter’s Bay, the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron in Kirribilli is a quiet place on Boxing Day morning. As it turned out, we were the only boat from the Squadron entering the race so we had pride of place among the berths with flags flying and people coming down to wish us good luck all morning as we prepared all of our sails and stowed perishable food on board.
Friends, family and partners came down too to cheer us off the dock and wish us luck and by the time we cast off from our berth, well over 150 other yacht club members had gathered. Needless to say it’s lovely to be farewelled by so many and be the only boat representing the RSYS.
The crew (we left the toddler behind)
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Casting off
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A motor past the crowd of well-wishers
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The Start
As the noise of the media helicopters grew by the minute and the sun began to shine in earnest, we motored out to the start line and sailed past the Race Committee Boat with our storm sails up, declaring how many people we had on board, as per the conditions of entry for races such as this. It’s a rule that you must finish the race with the same number of people that you start with. While that might seem obvious, back in the Americas Cup battles during the 70s, boats on their last downwind leg of a race would jettison weight so as to go faster….so they would throw off a load of sails and half the crew for support boats to pick up. A tad dangerous to say the least and a practice that’s banned these days.
Once our registration duties were completed and the storm sails were packed away, we motored into Rose Bay for some peace and quiet as we talked through our strategy for the start and the plan for the race. We discussed various elements of tactics and what the different weather models were predicting and enjoyed a nice ham and cheese roll. By the time we started the 11-minute countdown to the gun, we were all focussed and primed for a tough start and a disciplined night.
The start itself was fairly eventful. There were three start lines this year; one for the over 70 footers, the next one 300m behind it for the 40-70-footers (including the Clipper 70 division) and the final one 300m behind that for all the 30-40 footers. The reason for separating the start lines is to prevent congestion as the harbour is only so wide. A collision between a 100-footer and a 30-footer doesn’t bear thinking about.
We managed to get into the position we wanted away from too many other boats so as to get clean, undisturbed air and we were looking glamorous for a short while, until we hoisted our asymmetric spinnaker to get some acceleration up the harbour and started to bear away a little too much. So, we had to drop it in order to maintain our angle and when we did, the halyard was let go a bit too quickly and the kite went in the water, stopping the boat dead in her tracks. It was terribly embarrassing but very much a case of the start line nerves and it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as all the other 40-footers were tussling with each other and all sailing in the dirty air from the bigger boats. Indeed, by the time we’d gathered in the spinnaker, we managed to find a lane of nice, clean air close to South Head and we caught up with the fleet in no time.
We're in there somewhere!
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Outside, the heads, we found ourselves heading south into a southerly swell which, combined with the washing machine effect from the wakes of all the big motorboats out watching the start meant that I broke my own race record - I was sick off the starboard aft quarter by the time we got to Bondi. Rather than be concerned for me, the lads on board thought it was hilarious and haven’t stopped teasing me about it since. One of them brought a GoPro along and wanted me to wear it as a ‘SpewCam’ but the battery wasn’t charged yet – nobody expected me to leave a berley trail so early.
One of the guys was later to tell me that he looked at me being sick and thought to himself “This is going to be a LONG race”, but settling in as we sailed down the coast, the sea state and the wind calmed and I started feeling more human again, hoping that I’d get my sea legs by the time the front hit us – due on Saturday night.
We were stuffing our faces with snacks but trying to move about the boat very gently in the light winds so as not to disturb our momentum. Light winds clocked around to the East enabling a comfortable two-sail reach but still worryingly slow progress. The fleet separated and the various race strategies became obvious; at the 17:05 sked it was apparent that some boats were going offshore to get more wind and also a bigger bite of the Eastern Australian Current (the EAC). This can move at up to 4 knots in a southerly direction but it’s not consistently that strong and one must travel a fair way out to sea to pick it up, so it’s often a case of assessing the cost to benefit ratio and deciding from there.
Our strategy was to stay a little closer to shore - knowing we'd initially lose out but when the big cold front hits us on Saturday night with howling gales from the west, we wouldn't have to fight it coming in from far offshore to cross the Bass Strait. A hare and tortoise strategy, you might say.
The skies were cloudy at night. The moon was in its last quarter and on the wane, affording us little in the way of ambient light but almost as if to apologise for this, Mother Nature sent us some wonderful wildlife in the form of a dozen or so dolphins, being illuminated like glowing green torpedoes by the phosphorescence, which was as thick and bright as I've ever seen it.
Friday 27th Dec – DAY 2
The odd rain squall provided a spattering of something different in the darkness of night and after hours of chasing clouds (for under big clouds are often big winds), the sunrise on Friday morning was out of this world; fingers of bright pink and orange light penetrating high into the sky. The 3am-6am watch is my favourite as the inky blackness of the night sky turns to a grey-blue with a wonderful pinkish tinge, almost as if the sun is having a quick peek to check if it'll be alright to rise above the horizon today. At this time the waves appear to turn a gunmetal grey colour which seems to give them an almost silky look, before the sun does come up and finally the sea turns its familiar blue-green.
All day on Friday the weather was amazing - blue skies, 10-15 knots of wind from the north-east; perfect sailing conditions and indeed this made for perfect cooking and eating conditions as the seas were down to 1.5m so we all tucked into Fiona's home made lamb and barley stew. Little did we know that this was to be the last meal we'd eat until arriving in Hobart. I cleverly had a second helping and noticed that there was no more sight of land when I went off watch to hit the bunk.
Navigation
I suppose at this point I should describe how we manage to navigate the boat. It’s not simply a case of keeping Australia on the right and going for it as there are shoals and rocks to avoid, lighthouses with sequences we need to learn and so we need maps and charts. Thankfully these are all available online and we use GPS-based tracking software that’s configured with realtime weather data to show us where we are, what the winds and currents are doing and from all of this data we work out where we want to be and calculate our desired bearing to our next spot. This all takes place down below deck in a little seat and desk known as the ‘nav station’. All of the boat’s control functions are housed in this unforgiving spot on the starboard side; there’s the VHF radio which is used for communications, the engine pressure dials and fuel gauge, battery gauges, all electrical switches, emergency position indicators and a stereo. Thus, the navigator will from time to time, poke his head up from this spot and tell the helmsman to steer to a given compass bearing and will diligently attempt to steer to that bearing.
I digress…..
Our position in the fleet changed little during the day and at around 9pm on Friday night after a magnificent day of sailing, while our friends were all probably all partying hard in Sydney, we found ourselves quite entirely becalmed at sea.
I can't begin to explain the frustration that's felt when you find yourselves becalmed in a race….trying to find even the tiniest breath of wind to get the boat rumbling along again is outrageously annoying. We have a sail called a 'Drifter' which is a jib like any other but much made of very fine and light sail cloth like a spinnaker - it's so light that if you sneezed in the right direction it would probably fill and pull the boat along. We had it up for 2 hours and got the boat moving at 2 to 3 knots before we found more consistent wind worthy of a heavier jib. Other boats must have used their drifters all night. Tensions on board rise to the surface in these conditions and luckily we got moving quickly…..and in fact we experienced a rather fortunate freak wind - 3 hours of really firm pressure coming off the land to the west which pushed us wonderfully out into the current and, bizarrely, we seemed to be one of only a small handful of boats to experience this as others remained bobbing up and down in very patchy easterlies and even at times, becalmed completely as we had been.
Saturday 28th Dec – DAY 3
By the 7am sked it was apparent that we had overtaken huge chunks of the fleet thanks to that 3 hours of really good reaching across that night wind. The 100-footers Wild Oats and Loyal had been parked up in Bass Strait doing 8 knots which to those guys would have been like going backwards……like a Formula One car stuck in first gear. ItI think it can be considered rude to laugh but we found it hard to stifle a good chuckle at the thought. $100m dollars can buy you a line honours win in a yacht race but it can't buy you the wind.
By mid-morning, when the sun started to have an effect warming the sea and the land, the conditions were freshening nicely. We were running down the coast with a spinnaker up, doing 8-12 knots in 15-20 knots of wind - fantastic sailing. We knew we were in for a day of consistent wind like this so it was about making the most of it, not breaking anything, staying disciplined and putting ourselves in the best position possible for the cold front that we knew was coming. Our only misfortunes were the waves being too big to allow us to make any hot food and the port side steering breaking. The latter sounds far more scary but we have two wheels and used the starboard side wheel while the port was operated on down below by Brad, our trusty trimmer…..who somewhat remarkably, wasn't sick when he came back up on deck, drenched in sweat after an hour down below in a tiny, crammed space at the back of the boat. I don’t know how he does it; the man’s a machine when it comes to fixing boats. The rest of us are more adept at breaking them.
Hygiene on board
Speaking of tiny, crammed spaces on boats, you may be wondering what happens on board when it comes to our daily hygiene routine. Well, to put it bluntly, we don’t shower for 4 days and there are three really good reasons for this. Firstly, we’d have to take too much water. Water is heavy. Heavy is slow.
Secondly, spending more time than is absolutely necessary in the head (the toilet/ shower room) is dangerous. On the way back from a recent race up to Cabbage Tree Island to qualify for the Sydney to Hobart, one of the crew was in the head when we came off a big wave and landed hard - he came out with a 6cm gash in his scalp, the walls of the head painted in claret.
The third reason is simple; we’re racing. We have no time to shower. Any time to oneself off watch should be spent doing boat maintenance, re-hydrating, feeding and sleeping and getting ready for the next watch!
Now all of that said, nobody likes to be smelly and unclean so we use baby wipes to ‘shower’ and for number ones, we go off the back. If the seas are too rough and we can’t hang on at the back, we go downstairs in a bucket and throw it over the side. For number twos (or indeed number ones for Fiona, our only girl on board) the head needs to be used and it’s a bizarre series of valves, pumps and hoses that only the finest of marine engineers can figure out how to use...so most of us hold onto it….which is easy if you’re hardly eating for 3 days.
I digress again….
Saturday morning was wonderfully sunny, warm and turned out to be a good period for wildlife spotting. We saw a whale that was thankfully a long way from us, I saw a large shark feeding on an unfortunate fish or seal and I also saw a sunfish for the first time. I'd never seen one before but like all sailors, have heard the horror stories of yachts hitting sunfish and losing their keel or rudder to these giant, lumbering, ugly surface feeders.
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Still in the early morning, some 20 nautical miles off Green Cape, we contacted race control as per the race rules and informed them of our intention to enter the Bass Strait and continue to Hobart.
By Saturday lunchtime the winds were blowing hard from the North and we were making outstanding progress through the Bass Strait, surfing down waves under our giant white symmetrical spinnaker. While this all sounds terribly pleasant, we were ecstatic about how quickly we were churning through the miles because the Bass Strait is not a place to be when a big front comes through. For those not in the know, allow me to explain.
As a stretch of water, the Bass Strait has a terrifying reputation. The bottom of this stretch of sea and the coastline that surrounds it is a 'who's who' of shipwrecks spanning the last 2 centuries as it has the most sickening and frightening characteristics that remind us all that we spent millions of years getting out of the oceans and that as a result of our evolutionary migration we have legs and we belong on the land. I've met Round the World yacht racers and even merchant seamen who will do everything in their power to avoid entering the Bass Strait and here’s why….
The Bass Strait
Think of the Bass Strait as a home made incendiary device made from a child's chemistry set. There are only a few ingredients, each of which is fairly harmless. Each ingredient is easily handled with no significant supervision required. Mix them all together in the right amounts though…..and things start to get pretty interesting pretty quickly.
The first of the ingredients is the Eastern Australian Current which I mentioned above, pushing warm water from the tropics down into the Strait at up to 4 knots.
Secondly, there exists another strong current that is spat out from the West where the ocean has been bottlenecked between the Australian mainland and Tasmania. When currents from different directions meet like this, the waves approach you from 2 different directions and they are the size of houses. Lottery winners’ houses. The waves also have a rapid frequency, steep faces and backs to them so they break under their own weight; boats are slammed down into the troughs like a discarded bathtub toy.
Third to enter the test tube of nautical nightmares is the edge of the continental shelf. The swells coming out of the Southern Ocean are suddenly pushed upwards as the deep, cold water meets the shallow edge of the Australian continent and the warm waters pushing eastwards and southwards. Yep, you guessed it; that makes the waves even bigger and currents harder to predict.
Our final ingredient in the concoction is the latitude - we're down in the Roaring Forties here where weather systems whizz around the Antarctic continent with no landfall to stop or slow them….winds are super-sized, they come with extra large swells and a side of unforgiving energy. Additionally, the colder the air is, the denser it is, so winds appear to have more grip and ‘bite’ to them.
When the conditions all combine together? Throw a match into the test tube and run away.
So, by Saturday afternoon and after a good 12 hours in the Strait, we'd managed to get across the halfway point as if Mother Nature was looking the other way and didn't know we were there. We did manage to slam poor Minerva on her side a couple of times, known as a ‘broach’, by trying to surf too fast down waves so we resigned ourselves to packing the spinnaker away and using a poled-out jib at the front which was almost just as fast but twice as safe…‘If you want to win the Sydney to Hobart, you first have to get to Hobart’ ringing in our ears.
Wind speeds were reaching up to 37 knots by this time, which is the speed at which the authorities close airport runways…..the noise is incredible and a howl develops as it whips around the mast; one has to bellow just to make oneself heard and changing sails up at the front is a cold, wet, and violent pastime as the bow is launched up and slammed down and waves crash over the side, but despite the fear of another broach in the big waves we knew that the faster we got to Flinders Island off the north-eastern tip of Tasmania, the safer we'd be when the cold front arrived.
And so, inevitably after a wonderful day of using our 43-foot yacht as a giant surfboard, we found ourselves getting very nervous about the approaching cold front. Approximately an hour before sunset, we saw it on the horizon in the form of low, grey cloud, a distinct, trouser-wettingly dark line of impending doom, moving towards us at a menacing pace. The thermals went on. I found myself thinking about the life rafts, where all the safety gear was and how to access it quickly. More thermals went on, the bear suits and foul weather outer layers were donned and we put two reefs in the main to reduce its size and a tiny, tiny jib up at the front. Hats and gloves came from pockets hitherto unused in the race and while our precautions were a little early, it was worth it. In the 2011 race we hit a large front like this and we were too late in trying to reef the main - it's easy to do in low wind; it's almost impossible in 40 knots.
Within ten minutes, the cold front hit us with a good, solid punch in the face. Its characteristic change of wind direction and huge drop in temperature taking our breath away with the winds knocking us all over the place. We aren't novices in these conditions though and once the fuss had died down we settled in for what we knew would be an unpleasant sail down the east coast of Tasmania to Tasman Island - the point at which we turn west across the accurately entitled 'Storm Bay' and up into the Derwent River to Hobart.
What we didn't know and couldn't predict though, was quite how horrible the sea state was going to be and how high the wind speeds would reach….and how cold it would all be. We thought that by staying close to Tasmania, we’d be sheltered a little from the huge winds and really big seas. We were quite wrong.
Sunday 29th Dec – DAY 4
We hardly saw another boat out there all night and all of Sunday. The amount of white water started to eclipse the amount of blue and grey. The chatty conditions of the last two days of great running conditions were now replaced by incessant, relentless smashing and banging as the boat was launched off the tops of waves and slammed into the troughs below. And yes, once again, my stomach was having none of it. This time however, I was not alone in my fish-feeding efforts at the stern. Brad was sick. 'Bluey' was sick and even seasoned ocean warrior 'Blax' was sick for the first time in 14 Sydney to Hobarts. If nothing else in this write-up gives you the picture of the sea state, perhaps that rather unpleasant image will.
It took us all day to get down to Tasman Island, passing close to the magnificent headlands and cliffs of Tasmania’s east coast and somehow, between increasingly loud visits to the stern, still managing to appreciate the incredible birdlife and aquatic mammalian life that exists in this unforgiving part of the world. A helicopter managed to come out to take a few pictures of us but they weren’t out for long, such was the intensity of the wind. While they were over us though, they managed to snap this little ripper.
Dolphin escort - Welcome to Tasmania!
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Other than a jib halyard that snapped as we crested a large wave, we experienced no real damage, unlike other boats. We heard on the radio that afternoon the horror stories of broken arms, legs, engines not working, concussions, snapped masts, bent booms and other frightening scenarios that we're all trained to handle but nobody ever wants to experience at sea. Perhaps one of the advantages of being on the Race Committee Chairman's boat and under the most scrutiny of the entire fleet, is that we prepare Minerva better than anyone else could - we replace gear more often than most and we fix and maintain everything ourselves, so this was almost one less thing to worry about.
By the time the sun started dropping in the sky, all that remained after our day of huge efforts getting south was to cross the aptly-named Storm Bay and into the safe, flat and sheltered waters of South Tasmania. Instead of a simple crossing though, the wind, after a gale warning and now in the 40-knot 'boat breaking' zone with seas of more than 8m meant that we were like a bobbing cork at the mercy of the swells reflecting off the island and coming straight back at us….it took us almost 12 hours to tack across the bay, being pushed dangerously close to the giant cliffs.
I must at this point pay tribute to the guys sharing the duties on the helm – Blax, Ed, Bob and Paul, who managed to steer the boat incredibly well despite the howling wind spraying salt water into their eyes. With the waves crashing over the boat with a frightening regularity, it’s incredible that they managed to hang onto the wheel, never mind steer us to safety.
Eventually, after we’d rounded the island with all of us completely exhausted from our efforts, we started to feel the subsidence of the waters – the waves becoming less aggressive and the noisy slamming of the boat into the troughs less frequent. Within an hour of rounding Tasman Island we found ourselves in the shelter of Bruny Island and approaching the Iron Pot marker of the mouth of the Derwent River. Hallelujah!
A couple of other boats’ navigation lights appeared in the darkness of Sunday night as we began the smooth, wonderful journey up the River and into Hobart. Few people realise it but at the same time as the Sydney to Hobart are the Launceston to Hobart and the Melbourne to Hobart races and it was a few of these guys that we saw. Our progress up the river was painfully slow, the wind dropping right out to zero more than 6 times, but it wasn't long each time before we got going again…..and fortuitously, the tide was on the flow up river so we didn't have to fight it. Boats have been known to anchor in the river during the race so the outgoing tide and current doesn't push them backwards while waiting for some wind. Not for us this time though, thank goodness.
As we neared the finish line, the first rays of daylight broke over Hobart - a beautiful, Colonial settlement and fishing port that is such a welcome sight for so many sailors.
We were welcomed as we crossed the line at 5:30am by Kenny, one of our old mates who had already finished the race (and who'd subsequently been at the pub all night and reeked of rum) and a few amazing partners, friends and family who had journeyed down by plane to meet us. Thanks to the yacht tracking software, my girlfriend was able to get up just before our ETA and come down to the dock which was a fantastic sight after a few days in close quarters with 11 other sweaty sailors…..or ‘grotty yachties’ as we’re frequently and accurately bemonickered.
Tim, the boat owner and Race Director, brought us down a case of Boags and a couple of huge platters of roast chicken. As we scoffed it down at a pace and noise resembling feeding time at the zoo, we realised that we hadn't eaten anything more than a piece of fruit or a few lollies or indeed slept properly since Friday morning. Needless to say the beer went down rather nicely and it didn’t take us very long to source a few more, even at 6am!
As we looked around the Constitution Dock marina at the other boats which had already finished, we could see those who hadn’t fared so well in the big seas. Wedgetail had lost her mast which would have been extremely scary in those conditions and other boats had bent or broken booms, broken lifelines and stanchions – not a pretty sight.
Wedgetail safe after their dismasting
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We also realised that we were only the third boat under 45 feet in length to get there….not something we usually experience…..and that all 12 of the brand new Clipper 70s, the round-the-world boats out from England that joined us for this race, were conspicuous in their absence. Had we beaten them all on line honours?
As it turned out, we had done exactly that - our hare and tortoise strategy on the Thursday and Friday had paid dividends - the big powerful Clipper boats struggling in the light winds had gone much further offshore to find more breeze but as a result they had such a long way to come Westwards against the heavy south-westerly winds of Saturday night and Sunday that they were well off the pace by the time the cold front hit.
One of the Clipper 70 monsters, all of which we'd beaten to Hobart
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We were awarded third place in our division – a podium spot and a smashing trophy for us which was fantastic but we’d beaten much faster boats than us over a long race on line honours and that seemed more important. Acceleration of the celebrations became something of a priority!
The atmosphere was fantastic, as it always is in Hobart. Down there, nobody really cares about who came first or second, people only care about everyone making it there in one piece….and making it to the showers…and then to the pub.
After a quick wallaby kebab at the Taste Festival, we marched into the Customs House Bar and from that point I confess it all gets a little hazy. You see the pub remains open 24 hours a day for 3 days straight and it’s full of sailors….some still in their foul weather gear, others showered and changed. Everyone drinking gallons of beer and enough rum to frighten the Navy. Tales of heroic sail change manoeuvres on the foredeck and of horrific sea conditions and injuries suffered were as prevalent as ever in the bar and the photographs adorning the walls of the previous Sydney to Hobart winners really lent themselves to a tremendous sense of camaraderie and the romance of ocean racing.
I know that we ate the famous scallop pies from the pie shop next door and the whole crew, friends family and partners went out for dinner at the Drunken Admiral. We must have gone back to the pub after dinner and ploughed our way through gallons of rum and coke because I can remember the sun coming up and disappearing to the airport and experienced one of those wonderful flights where ones’ eyelids close the very second the seatbelt is fastened and reopen when the plane touches down in Sydney with a bump.
Recollecting much else is entirely beyond me.
In all honesty, I think that's my last Sydney to Hobart….at least on a small boat. I've done three now and had some pretty hairy conditions in each one but this time the seas out there were really scary and it's only a matter of time before we get another '94 or '98 where a big cyclone forms and I just don't want to be out there in that. When something goes wrong, it's a long way from land….and normally, when something does go wrong, it's far too windy for a helicopter to come out and save your soul. I've spent some time in a liferaft during training for these races and they're not pleasant places to be at all.
I think I’m happy to keep my feet on solid ground from now on….or at least if I do go out of the Sydney heads again, I'll turn North to the warm waters off the Queensland coast rather than South towards the Roaring Forties!
Mind you, that’s the third time I’ve said that now….
Rob Warren.
Mastman,
Minerva 6837
Arrival into Consitution Dock shortly after finishing
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First beer within minutes of tying up
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The Minerva Nautical School for the Gifted
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Pride of place in Constitution Dock
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