Rolex Sydney Hobart - Three Kiwi boats inside the top eight

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/NZ on 26 Dec 2016 New Zealand Volvo 70 is now in second place overall in the 2016 Rolex Sydney Hobart after the withdrawal of the early race leader, Wild Oats XI.

The Jim Delegat owned former Volvo Ocean Race winner made a move from fifth to third overall around dawn as the fleet cleared the area of light air that had replaced the usual southerly front that traditionally hits the fleet on the first night the of the offshore classic.

Sailing under the burgee of the Royal Akarana Yacht Club, Giacomo has several top Volvo Ocean Race sailors aboard including Tony Rae, Rob Greenhalgh (GBR) and Brad Jackson.

With Wild Oats XI now out of the race, due to canting keel issues, the Kiwi owned boat was elevated into second, but is ahead of two other supermaxis in the race, Scallywag and CQS, which are 30ft longer.

Giacomo was the only boat of the top end of the fleet to stand out to the east of the direct line, with Giacomo being the furthest east of that lead group.

That got her away from the patch of light air that developed along the NSW coast, and once all boats had cleared the light airs of the night, Giacomo was well position to get a slingshot launch to Hobart coming in on a building easterly breeze.

However that smart navigation hides the fact that that in certain conditions the Volvo 70 type is extremely fast punching well above its weight.

The race record for the classic Rolex Fastnet Race is held by the Volvo 70 Abu Dhabi (Ian Walker) set in 2011. In that race the first three boats home were also Volvo 70's beating two other supermaxis home in a fast reach back from the Rock.

The second New Zealand boat in the Sydney Hobart is the Botin 80 Beau Geste (Karl Kwok), skippered by Aaron Rowe for this race, with regular skipper Gavin Brady also on board. She is racing under the burgee of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

Currently Beau Geste is lying fourth on the water with two supermaxis behind her. She trails a second Volvo 70 Maserati in third, with another Volvo 70 Black Jack slightly inshore of her in fifth place. The two other supermaxi's in the race are behind in sixth and eighth places.

“Last night it was pretty rough and no one got a lot of sleep. It was all hands on deck ” said tactician Gavin Brady via Sat phone to their shore team, at 0930hrs.

“We came into Bass Strait this morning and it was beautiful, dolphins around the boat and no water over the deck…. not what Bass Strait is normally like for the fleet.’

“It was certainly one of the calmest entries to Bass Strait that we’ve ever had though. But it’s starting to get a bit bumpy again” he added as the easterly wind picked up and they were making for Tasman Light doing 18 knots of boat speed.

On Beau Geste’s clever strategy that saw the Cloudy Bay sponsored 80-footer second to exit Sydney Harbour trailing the 100ft supermaxi Perpetual Loyal Brady commented to his shore team, “It was a nice way to exit the heads. We stuck to our game plan and everything worked out our way. There were a few tricky moments trying to get around Sow and Pigs reef.”

The Beau Geste did suffer some damage overnight. A spinnaker ripped through a gybe and the crew spent the next 3-4hrs sewing it up to get it flying again, according to the boat's shore team. “We had a good night; a lot of water over the deck. The tear cost us through the breeze transition though; we probably spent 3-4hrs recovering, the boys did a really good job. I think everyone had some issues at that point,” Brady said.

The revolutionary CQS has had a trying race, getting caught after being forced to crash tack at the start to avoid another boat with her keel fully canted and jammed for several minutes.

Once she cleared Sydney Heads, the revamped supermaxi which carries the Dynamic Stability System (DSS) - she lost one of her DSS foils on the first night - after it broke, and partially crippled lacked the pace of the other supermaxis. As has been seen in the Vendee Globe with Hugo Boss (Alex Thomson) who also broke a DSS foil - the radical boats are able to hang on in certain conditions, but with broken foils are noticeably slower in power reaching conditions.

The Rolex Sydney Hobart is being conducted in record setting conditions, and the lead boat is expected to take six hours off the existing record held by the now withdrawn Wild Oats XI.

Earlier race time predictions from Predictwind's routing application - with the snapshot taken 18 hours after the race start has the race leader, supermaxi, Perpetual Loyal having another 18hours left to sail - making 36 hours for the 628 nm race. That gives a finish time of around 2.00am tomorrow morning and a massive seven hours off the race record.

The average speed from Predictwind's routing application indicated an average speed for the rest of the course is 18kts for a top supermaxi. Winds will ease after nightfall, but this should not prevent the record being set, and winds are predicted to be 10kts at the race finish.

All four weather feeds used by Predictwind are unanimous in their projection, increasing the certainty of the predicted race time outcome.

There is little difference between the optimised course and a straight line for Hobart from the leaders current position, meaning that the leaders will just focus on sailing as quickly as possible without any real course positioning considerations.

The remaining 18hours of the race are expected to be sailed in near dream record conditions with winds just aft of the beam and a following sea of 1.4metres - allowing the supermaxis to build their apparent wind and achieve record times. The performances of the Volvo 70's will also be watched keenly as they hit their optimised conditions.

To follow the race progress on the official tracker click here

To see the wind and boat positions on an alternate tracker click here