Sydney - Hobart- A Tiptoe with Tulips and 60 knots

by Trevor Walkley on 18 Dec 2008 As you will not recall, we are competing the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, arguably, the toughest annual ocean race in the world, and we were on our way to the heads.

We turned right out of the Sydney Heads. This is very important when doing a Rolex Sydney to Hobart! Had we turned left we would be about 8 days early for the Coffs Harbour Race, which starts in January, and likely not to be deemed to start that race, (some mutterings about OCS is bound to be invoked by the Race Committee).

Aside from not turning left, (good decision by Vasco da Sandbar, the Navigator, Vasco da Gama was his step brother 500 years ago), who wants to rock hop? Last time I rock hopped, the seals filed a protest for failing to give them water.

Eight hours later we are still in 20 knots up the bum and going for it, (and we hate it up the bum, head is better for us, ermmm, head winds are better for us). The only issue so far is that the leaders are being knocked down by a clear air southerly squall, which is fair enough, as they are in front, uuummm, I mean, the expected southerly front has come through, 17 hours early and its pitch black.

Luckily we don't witness this, as they are 50 miles in front of us. The earliest warning we get is our spinnaker hugging the mast and requesting its mummy. Its at this moment that the helmsman decides that its his watch off, (as I am on the helm, this is a good decision by me, I thought).

This brings me to the 'watch system'. The 'Who is on what Watch decision" is a complicated USA style collegiate voting system polled over months of campaigning amongst the crew members, and decided 2 hours into 'turning right' by way of "you are on watch". Fantastic! I was wanting a snooze before getting into the bunk and being woken up with the words,"we need you to change the main to the trys'l that you put up before the start". Huh!?

Now where was I? The mast is rescued from the embrace of the spinnaker (it's such a naughty sail).

Meanwhile, Charles is revving everyone up about his Montague Island sausages which are the second nights main meal. The main ingredient is a marinade of bilge water laced with diesel and curry. Our bilges are shallow and he is a bit peeved that the best result he will achieve will only be if they are left on the leeward bunk, as that is where all bilges drain to, (and it is also his bunk).

He is also in total agreement with the Sandbar chap about boiling the rice in salt water. I have severe misgivings about our Night 2 sustenance, and look longingly at the cat biscuits the skipper brought aboard as emergency rations.

Glorious day, 50 knots on the nose, lovely trys'l set, (shame about the kevlar main that the sail maker said not to mistreat that is being strangled on the boom).

Tiny Tim is playing full blast, as it is 'tiptoe through the tulips time', weaving, dodging and corkscrewing off the wave sets, built by the southerly set and the southerly gale. The skipper tends to get very antsy with crew that wants to see if the boat can fly to each wave instead of remaining in the water. His main concern is the levitation caused by the free fall, where he gets plastered to the deck above him before being slammed back into the bunk, and apparently the tool boxes underneath have grumbled to him about it as well.

It is fantastic that the entire off watch has decided they want to be part of the action on deck with us. They however are looking rather distressed and three minutes later the reason becomes apparent. Vasco has decided to test the heads. All they had time for was to grab at the closest life preserver and life line, although its not helping much and they consider launching the life raft, and putting him in it.

As we are heading sort of east, Green Cape is on our beam, so we pass the Green Cape Rule albeit we are on our way to New Zealand, looking for the South Easterly shift. (Just re-read the sailing instructions, they say you need to be at Latitude 37° 15' S, bugger), luckily we have a fully preconfigured spare HF transceiver in the lazerette, wrapped in cling wrap, which is not needed as we can talk with Cape Reinga (NZL) quite well with our main radio.

The decision overnight was to tack West, so we are now at Point Perpendicular. We were hoping for Green Cape, and to add to the insult there is zero wind and a 3 metre swell. More mistreatment of the kevlar main with its constant flogging and we consider putting the trys'l back up except we may need it later, so we don't. We have been looking at this rock for 14 hours now.

Actually, it's smaller than we first saw it, as are we caught in a back eddy of the southerly set and are being pushed sort of north, towards Coffs Harbour. At this rate we will start that race, except that while drifting sort of north we are making great gains on some stationary rocks, well, the coastline in general really. (More seals are not happy with us, again).

At last the wind fills in. From the South East.

Yippee, Green Cape abeam, so we immediately check how the radio is in the lazerette, and tell Race Control that it is fine, and although some valves appear broken, we have spares on board. Stunned silence.

While we are talking of radios and communications, on several occasions the Race Organisers have had some strange emails from WARS (Whales Against Racing South). Whales have emailed the organisers of the Sydney to Hobart with a very strongly worded missive about changing the dates of the race as they are sick and tired of having to ram yachts in their way while migrating North.

Of course other groups have heard about the WARS email, like SIASOK (Sunfish I Am Sunning OK) and DAP (Dolphins at Play), the Dolphins main concern is that the yachts are not playful enough and the only time they see any playfulness is when there is a broach.

Speaking of broaches, they usually occur just when you are hanging on to the shrouds, testing the depth under the keel. It's quite amazing how self preservation takes 100% of ones thinking, so its two hands now on the shrouds, water up to your neck, completely soaked as nothing was done up, and change of underwear is required ... urgently.

Next , Bass Strait, should be a walk in the park really.
(Ed: Trevor has done 14 Sydney to Hobarts to date and looks forward to his next one, and is a Technical Editor for Sail-world)