Rolex Sydney Hobart- Is it really all about the money and high-tech?

by Richard Gladwell and Sue Neales on 2 Jan 2015 Sue Neales, a correspondent for leading newspaper The Australian, covered the 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, and takes this look at the ongoing debate in the sport about the issues of increased technology, professional sailing competing against amateurs, the cost, and the impact of sponsorship both at a boat level and an event level.

From a media perspective there is also the creeping issue of media manipulation and control by event organisers/sponsors.

Most major events around the world grapple with varying success with these issues. Those that fail have a falling entry level. Those that succeed, like the Fastnet Race are quickly oversubscribed for entries.

From an international perspective the Rolex Sydney Hobart had a good balance with the glamour of the supermaxis pulling the general media attention, the serious racing takes place amongst middle of the fleet, with plenty of races within races. Amongst the small boats there is the sheer physical challenge of being able to complete the course in the best traditions of man against nature.

Sailing getting the raspberry from some elements of the general media is nothing new. Try living in a country the runs an America's Cup team with all the accompanying shenanigans. But always the sport can learn from the commentary of those who are not embedded in sailing.

Here's Sue Neale's take on some aspects of the recent Sydney Hobart Race. Although Sue Neales is a general correspondent with The Australian, she has been has been covering the Sydney Hobart for over a decade. She is originally from Tasmania.

When seemingly unbeatable Wild Oats XI glided first across the finish line of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race on Sunday afternoon for the eighth time in 10 years, cheers rang out from thousands of admiring spectators lining Hobart’s historic wharves.

But elsewhere around Australia there were collective groans from less avid sailing fans.

Social media was full of posts and tweets that repeatedly linked the great race with the words 'boring', 'predictable' and, most worryingly for race organisers, 'yawn' and 'I’m not interested any more'.

It’s a long way from the horrendous 1998 race, when mountainous breaking waves 20m high sank five boats, cost six sailors their lives and led to the dramatic rescue of another 55 sailors plucked from foaming seas and broken decks by brave helicopter pilots.

Back then, the world watched in fascinated horror and incredulity at the courage of the 1000 amateur sailors prepared to tackle, and apparently enjoy, taking part in such a dangerous yacht race every Boxing Day.

Billionaire American yachtsman and computer mogul Larry Ellison, who survived the 1998 race and ultimately won line honours on Sayonara, famously vowed he would never do 'another Hobart if I live to be 1000'.

'I think about it all the time; it was a life-changing experience,' Ellison said a decade after the 1998 race. 'We were enormously grateful having made it; it was a race for survival, not for victory, trophies or anything like that.'

But these days, exactly 70 years since a group of nine old salts first decided to cruise-race their wooden boats the 628 nautical miles from Sydney to Hobart back in 1945 — shooting rabbits and stopping for a beer at the Port Arthur pub on the way — there are many purists who fear big money, sponsorship and expensive technology have taken over the spirit of their much-loved race.

It is now the Rolex Sydney to Hobart yacht race, with the Swiss precision watchmaker paying undivulged millions of dollars a year to Sydney’s Cruising Yacht Club of Australia to sponsor and have 'naming rights' to the iconic ocean race.

Winner Wild Oats XI, itself worth more than $10 million, is a veritable advertising machine. Its huge grey mainsail — with a price tag of $500,000 — is emblazoned with logos from Channel 7 and its luxury car sponsor Audi; its white spinnaker spruiks owner Bob Oatley’s wines and the heavy black boom his Hamilton Island resort.

Second placegetter Comanche, a radically designed new yacht built this year by US Netscape founder and Texan billionaire Jim Clark and his Laser dinghy-sailing Australian model wife Kristy Hinze-Clark, set its owners back $40m once running costs are ­included.

Many now ask if limitless wealth — and the cutting-edge engineering and technology it affords — can virtually buy a line honours win in the Sydney-Hobart, once regarded as the ultimate test of endurance and seamanship.

Arriving in Hobart docks yesterday morning, a weary Bruce Taylor, owner of Melbourne yacht Chutzpah and a veteran of 34 Sydney-Hobarts, is among those fed up with the many changes money has brought to the sailing world.

The first small boat to reach Hobart — at just 12.3m long — Chutzpah lacks all the latest expensive yachting performance aides common to its bigger, more sophisticated rivals.

There are no canting keels that swing using generated power to allow the boat to sail flatter and faster. No ballast water shifted electronically from side to side to give greater stability; no hydraulic winches or sails raised and tightened at the touch of an electronic button. And certainly no second engine running permanently throughout the race to keep the boat sailing upright and fast. Nor any handsomely paid professional racing yachtsmen sitting on the rails in the dark and wet.

'She’s still a real yacht and we do real sailing,' a salt-encrusted Taylor says proudly of Chutzpah, newly arrived at Constitution Dock after nearly three days at sea.

'They’ll say I’m a grumpy old bugger but it does give me the shits. I’ve got crew here exhausted from working winches for three days and no one is paid; it all comes down to hard work and seamanship on this boat, not pressing a button.

'It’s all become a bit too like horse racing for my liking; without being derogatory, some of these wealthy owners aren’t even sailors. Instead they hire young hot shots who expect to be paid a king’s ransom to race, and the boat that wins is the one with the most expensive engineering and that pays its professional crew the most.'

Taylor would like to see a Sydney-Hobart race ban on canting keels powered by a running engine — even though it is not adding forward thrust — or the additions so severely handicapped that good seamanship will always win out.

'How can they argue a motor running doesn’t make a difference when you can’t sail these boats without it? It allows them to sail at a speed and in a way they couldn’t if they didn’t have the canting keel, water ballast, hydraulic winches and all the technology that goes with it,' Taylor says.

'It’s very different from needing power for navigation lights and a fridge; they don’t make a boat sail faster.'

Wild Oats XI’s long-time skipper, professional yachtie Mark Richards, who called Wild Oats’ eighth line-honours win this year his 'sweetest victory', has no time for such criticism.

He reminds armchair critics, and venerated salty dogs such as Taylor, that even a superfast maxi with all the latest technological enhancements is only as good as the crew who sail it.

And while they may be paid sailors, an impatient 'Ricko' says it should be obvious that seamanship and teamwork still prevail over expensive toys, which also can be extremely difficult to ­control.

'Money won’t win sailing; never has and never will,' Richards says, a day after putting his name into the history books. 'A good example of that is Comanche; money was no object and she is the latest and the greatest (design) by one of the wealthiest owners in our sport.

'She was unbelievable at the start and the whole first night — but in the end we had the boat, the experience and the crew for all conditions. You can’t just buy yourself a win.'

But Taylor says money does talk, and has a huge impact on how much it costs to take part and remain competitive in a race once dominated by amateurs and 'weekend warriors'. The entry fee for each yacht to take part remains relatively small; just $250 a boat and $60 for each crew member.

But since the tragic 1998 race the rules have been tightened, requiring much more stringent and expensive safety, survival and radio equipment on every boat.

More significantly, it is the cost of sailing material and technology that is increasing exponentially.

New Zealand yacht owner, skipper and Oyster Bay wine distributor Jim Delegat is up for a bill of $400,000 after his 70-foot yacht Giacomo lost a carbon-fibre mast, the latest rigging technology and expensive composite sails overboard off Tasmania’s Freycinet Peninsula on Sunday.

A smashed carbon-fibre wheel on Scarlet Runner will set Sandringham owner and skipper Robert Date back a cool $3000.

But that’s loose change compared with the two ripped spinnakers and torn mainsail Scarlet Runner also suffered. Each will cost $20,000 to $30,000 to replace. Dockside yesterday, Date could not bring himself to tally the cost in front of his wife.

It was a similar story on 50-foot Victoire, which also shredded several hi-tech spinnakers and headsails. Owner Darryl Hodgkinson wryly quipped his family 'won’t be eating meat for a while'.

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