The Big Race

Well after a year sailing on St Jude, all the lead in races, training and preparation the big race finally came around and on 1pm the start gun went and the race was on! I thought I'd do a post on the race to let you know how it went.

The race

Most of you know a bit about the race from my email or poking around the race website www.rolexsydneyhobart.com . But a quick recap for those of you that haven't heard - the Hobart is one of 3 iconic ocean races (the others are the Fastnet race in the

UK and the Middle Sea race in the Med). It is held annually starting on Boxing Day at 1pm on Sydney Harbour, tracks down the east coast of Australia, crosses the Bass Strait, goes down the east coast of Tasmania, crosses Storm Bay and finishes up the River Derwent at Hobart, Tasmania. The race is an Australian national sporting institution - the harbour and shores are packed with spectators and there is live tv coverage. The race is 628 nautical miles (722 normal miles/1162 kms) and usually takes 3.5 to 5 days.

The yacht - "St Jude"

St Jude, the yacht I raced on is a 47 foot "Sydney 47" cruiser/racer designed and built in New South Wales and launched at the end of 2007. The owner, Noel is the CEO of an Australian steel company and with his engineering background took an intimate interest in her building and setting her up to be a model race yacht from both a racing and safety perspective. Noel spared no expense and cut no corner to ensure that St Jude was the best prepared it could be for the Hobart race. She and many of the crew had completed her maiden 2008 Hobart race and this experience was utilised to make sure that she was thoroughly sorted out for this year's race. The crew coordinator, Andy, did a great job of getting us all organised and we all had our allotted jobs from checking rigging, spares, the engine to putting the rolex stickers on the bow and bringing along bog paper. We had a crew of 12 on board who ranged from a retired head teacher, a doctor, a banker and the odd engineer or two. All the crew were a great bunch of guys and I have to say that Noel is a true gentleman in every sense of the word - 4 days of offshore racing in cramped quarters with little sleep really shows up people's personalities and Noel showed what an exceptional, understated character he is - he showed implicit trust in his crew and was totally unflappable - there was genuinely no shouting on the boat throughout (apart from other boats at the start!).

The start

Unfortunately Boxing Day dawned grey and drizzly. Lenka drove me down to Rushcutters Bay and the boat at 8am, we booked my end-of-race bag onto the baggage truck, packed my gear on board and then had a wander around the host yacht club (the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia). The atmosphere was huge as crews packed their boats, made last minute checks up the rigs, wished each other luck and checked out the competition. All the competitors displayed their Rolex race battle flags - yachts had come from all over Australia, NZ, Spain, the UK (including Leopard which had won line honours for the Fastnet and Middle Sea race and Ran that won the Fastnet on handicap). The fleet included 3 British armed forces yachts - one from each service - and ranged from the 100 foot maxis (Wild Oats, Alfa Romeo and Leopard) to the smallest yacht which was 35 foot. After final packing of the boat and checks we cast off from the marina at 11.30am and headed out onto the harbour to register for the start (which included hoisting our storm sails to prove we had them on board and could use them). We circled round the harbour, had some sandwiches, a final crew talk and then the count down to the start was on. There were 2 start lines to accommodate the number of boats - the biggest yachts were on the front start line with the remaining two thirds, including us, on the second. As the wind was behind us, as soon as the gun went spinnakers were hoisted and chaos ensued as everyone raced to get out of the heads of the harbour. Everyone was behaving as though it was the end and not the beginning of the race and there were several collisions (one boat got holed and had to retire). This resulted in several protests and the disqualification of a yacht when she reached Hobart. For most of the way out of the harbour I could have stepped off St Jude and stepped onto the boats each side of us and behind - it was a major relief to get out of the harbour unscathed, get the spinnaker down and start heading into the 20 knot southerly which faced us.

South bound

We settled into routine pretty much straight away, sitting on the side rail of the boat to try to keep her as flat as possible as we punched into the wind. Our tactic was to get far offshore as quickly as we could to try to get into the south flowing East Australian current. The current moves around and varies in strength and the official forecasts predicted that it would not have a major influence on the race. Our navigator was not so sure so we headed out 60 or 70 miles offshore to get into it. Sure enough we picked it up and started to get a 2 to 3 additional knot free ride south - when our speed was 7 to 9 knots this had a really significant influence on our overall speed over the ground. Unfortunately the strong wind blowing from the opposite direction to the current meant that we had a nasty short steep and rough sea state which made the first night a pretty unpleasant ride. Into day 2 and the effect of the east Australian current and focus on keeping the boat going as fast as possible paid off when we heard that we were coming first on handicap after the morning sked (each boat has to radio in and report its position during the sked and the race committee updates the fleet on who is leading the race). As you can imagine we got pretty excited but we all knew that we had a huge distance to go and that anything could still happen. Still it was pretty nice to know we were doing so well and were further south than a whole bunch of much bigger yachts.

Into Bass Strait

We headed into Bass Strait in the evening of day 2 with the wind dying out, an amazing sunset and a beautiful wine coloured sea. By this time we could not see any other yachts as everyone had spread out so we felt like we were floating around by ourselves. At night the stars and the phospherence in the wake of the boat was incredible. The breeze was very fickle completely dying out then coming up, dropping out, coming back in what seemed like an endless cycle. The strait was calm pretty much all the way across and uneventful. We tried to catch up on a bit of sleep and tried hard to keep the boat going as fast as possible.

Tasmania

Morning of day 4 saw us nearly becalmed 50 to 60 miles off Tasmania. It was around 8 in the morning and one of the guys poked his head up from below and said "I have got some good news and bad news" to groans from the crew everyone asked for the good news first: "So the good news is that I have spent half an hour sponging out the floor of the head [toilet]" he went into a bit more descriptive detail as to the unpleasantness of the task then he delivered his next little gem. "So the bad news is I forgot to bring the extra bog roll and we're down to 1 and half rolls and 1 of those is soaking wet from rolling round the floor of the head." A fair bit of feedback was given on this news including wonderment at that crew members' cognitive functioning. It also seemed to have a laxative effect on the crew - over the next 20 minutes various members of the crew quietly disappeared down below until someone announced rather smugly that the bog roll was now gone. Then followed a long discussion on alternatives to posterior hygiene which plumbed the depths and led to general hysteria - amazing what is funny when you are totally sleep deprived. After this interlude the weather rapidly changed and a couple of hours later we had 30 knots of wind on the nose and a 3 metre sea which gave everyone's wet weather gear and heavy weather helming a good workout for 9 hours straight. During what seemed like the longest time I have spent on the rail of the boat I saw the biggest shark I have seen sailing - only 3 metres or so but was glad I was on the boat! At the end of this we were heading into our final night at sea and the wind dropped out again to leave us floating around off Tasman Island desperately trying to get moving into Storm Bay - not much further to go!

The finish

The fourth night seemed the longest - I didn't sleep at all and we were desperately focussed on trying to squeeze some speed out of the boat. We could see other boats coming up on us on the horizon in new breeze and the frustration was incredibly intense. As dawn came we finally got some breeze and sailed into Storm Bay, past Cape Raoul and headed up towards the Iron Pot lighthouse and the mouth of the River Derwent. The scenery was amazing - incredible headlands and the organ pipes of Cape Raoul. For only the second time in the race we got a spinnaker up but the wind swung round and we had to change to a headsail again. The final hours of the race were a beautiful sail up the River Derwent in morning sunshine and a lovely breeze. We came right up to Hobart and after a few anxious moments searching for the finish line, we finished at nearly 10.30 on day 5. The feeling was amazing - Constitution dock was packed with spectators, the tannoys announced our arrival and we were clapped and cheered as we came into the marina. As soon as we had tied off we were handed a case of beer by the race organisers and well wishers came up for a chat and to take photos. After packing the boat up we headed to the legendary Customs House pub (open 24 hrs a day for the finishing boats), a traditional curried scallop pie and a few quiet beers. In the early hours of the following morning I finally made it to a real bed in the hotel room. We had a great new year's eve with a formal dinner hosted by the skipper, silly prizes (the under catering bog roll crewman award was a high spot), followed by beers on St Jude and fire works in front of Constitution dock.

Results

We ended up 16th on handicap overall and 4th in our division - a great result considering the quality of the competition. More importantly no damage was done to the crew or to St Jude. The camaraderie and mateship among the crew was outstanding - no serious cross words and a great time had by everyone. All in all an amazing experience!