Rolex Sydney Hobart - Its all up to the Derwent

by Bruce Montgomery on 29 Dec 2010 The overall winner of the 2010 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, the winner on corrected time, should be known mid-morning tomorrow (Thursday) when the last two contenders have made it to Hobart.

It is a three-way battle for the Tattersall’s Cup between the leader in the clubhouse, Geoff Boettcher’s South Australian yacht Secret Men’s Business 3.5, the long-time frontrunner Darryl Hodgkinson’s Beneteau First 45 Victoire from Sydney and the appropriately named Local Hero, Peter Moseley’s 36-footer from Sydney’s Middle Harbour Yacht Club.

As the two that are still at sea look through their narrow windows of opportunity, the weather forecast is for continuing wind around the Tasmanian south-east coast, from the west.

Victoire is cutting it fine. She has to be in Hobart by 3.16 am and, at 8 pm, her ETA was calculated to be 2.40 am.

Local Hero’s position is more complex. She appears to have only two minutes to spare in order to cross the line by 9.19 am. However, since she was the yacht to go to the assistance of the dismasted Bacardi on Monday, she can be expected to request redress, or a time allowance, for the time she spent alongside. Any allowance will adjust her elapsed time and therefore her corrected time.

Earlier today Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI and Niklas Zennstrom’s Ran each survived a race committee protest, allowing the four-time line honours winner Wild Oats XI to make it five in six years.

At 8pm 14 yachts had finished, 54 were still at sea and 19 had retired, the last being Andrew Corletto’s Shining Sea, which lost her rudder and made for St Helens, and Polaris of Belmont, which turned on her heels off the north-east coast of Flinders Island this evening and headed back to Sydney.

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