Rolex Sydney Hobart Race - Giacomo in Sit and Wait Game

by Crosbie Lorimer - Bow Caddy Media on 28 Dec 2016 If there’s one certainty in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race it’s that the ultimate decision-maker as to who gets to win the Tattersall’s Cup for the overall winner on IRC handicap is, as often as not, the Derwent River.

On numerous occasions over the race’s 72 history this capricious piece of geography has broken the hearts of crews and owners, robbing them of ‘certain victory’ by margins of minutes and even seconds.

The only difference this year is that the Derwent has decided to close the door at dawn and not at dusk, resulting in only five other yachts – Giacomo, Scallywag, Black Jack , Beau Geste and Maserati – being berthed in Constitution Dock since Perpetual Loyal took the race winning record at 2.30am this morning.

It would seem that the yacht most aggrieved by the mercurial river this time around has been Matt Allen’s Ichi Ban (the red hot favourite for the win even as late as early this morning) which sat twenty nautical miles from the finish line this morning in no wind and pouring rain as the minutes ticked down to - and passed - her 10.54am deadline.

As 11am passes the number of yachts with a chance to steal the trophy evaporates rapidly, perhaps only spoiler – and the odds seem very long with the current weather patterns – could be Sean Langman’s Maluka of Kermandie which needs to finish by 2.34pm tomorrow (Thursday) and to average 10 knots of boat speed for the remaining 283 nautical miles to the finish.

Meantime Jim Delegat, owner of Giacomo has kept dry ashore over the hours since they finished at 4.27am this morning (his crew enjoying the Quiet Little Drink tradition in the Customs House) with one hand on the trophy and the other hand reaching for the second handle.

“It was a fantastic race,” said Delegat “in the end it’s a question of lining up the moon, the sun and the stars for this race, which certainly happened for us with the weather this year.”

“We made a conscious decision to go out wide early and that really paid off, for us. In that first 18 hours we saw winds of 25 to 30 knots and were frequently seeing 25 -30 knots plus on the boat speed readouts. It was incredibly busy at the front of the boat and I think we used just about all the sails in the wardrobe.”

“If you’re serious about doing well in this race you have to have the best crew and we had some of the top people in the game on board, with crew like Tony Rae on main and Brad Jackson steering.”

“It’s just a sit and wait game now” said the affable Delegat as Ichi Ban’s deadline passed late this morning.

It’s a tough game racing to Hobart and the river finish is the most unusual and unique in ocean racing around the world. Indeed so unusual that a Dutch competitor some years ago, who missed out on a win thanks to the Derwent remarked,

“Who on earth thought of ending an ocean race in a river?”