Sydney Hobart Race With Sir Robin Knox-Johnston
Book Extract
I tick off another box in a lifetime of great racing achievements, taking part in the 2010 Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race. It didn’t turn out quite as I had expected…
The Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race, established by Captain John Illingworth in 1945, is one of the great bluewater classic yacht races. The distance of 628 miles makes it remarkably similar to the Fastnet and it can be just as testing. Recent years have been rather easy and the record has dropped below two days as the modern, long, light sledges have been able to reach at high speeds nearly all the way.
But 2010 turned out to be more like a proper Sydney Hobart with some gale-force winds on the nose to slow the sledges and allow the smaller and heavier boats a chance of good handicap results. The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia has a pleasant clubhouse and marina in Rushcutters Bay on Sydney Harbour and this is where the competing yachts gathered. We were on Richard Dobb’s Swan 68 Titania of Cowes, a heavy cruiser-racer, and we had 19 crew. There is something to be said for yacht racing with teak decks and a cook!
Our crew were a mix of Brits, Aussies and Americans, but this provided no cultural problems. The main differences seemed to focus around my solo habit of cleating a spinnaker and sailing to its luff and Andy Green’s determination to trim for every small angle of change. This cultural divide was not something that could be bridged easily in a matter of three short days!
The race traditionally starts on Boxing Day inside the harbour and then out through the heads, attracting a very large spectator fleet and plenty of people shoreside. There were 82 boats in the fleet and this number calls for two start lines, the difference being adjusted by separate buoys to be rounded as you clear the harbour.
A light north-easterly got the light boats away down the New South Wales coast, but then a front came through and we were beating into rising headwinds. That suited us, and our handicap position started to rise encouragingly. The seas were short and steep in the Force 8 winds, but we had the weight to push through them at between eight and nine knots.
Then disaster for our hopes struck when a deck-mounted liferaft washed overboard. The rules of the race are sensible and clear. You have to report before you start crossing the Bass Strait that all your safety equipment is on board and working. This we could no longer do, so we diverted to Eden and dropped off the crew who were in excess of the remaining liferaft capacity. We found three retiring boats already there and a further 16 retired over the next few hours, roughly 25 per cent of the fleet.
As we headed back out to sea the wind was easing and the Bass Strait did not provide the seriously nasty conditions that had caused casualties in earlier races. Then the wind went light and any hope we might have had of regaining our single figure handicap position drifted away.
But down the eastern Tasmanian coast the tactics are fascinating. We were told there had been only one sea breeze this year, and even allowing for some exaggeration, close inshore did not seem the right place to be, so we stayed a bit off the coast anxiously watching the boats in front and behind to see whether they had better winds inshore or offshore.
In the end it did not seem to make much difference, but we were buoyed by the cricket news that England had thrashed Australia in the 4th test and would retain the Ashes.
On the south coast we beat round the iconic cliffs off Cape Raol, which remind one of the Giant’s Causeway in Ulster. Then there is a 40-mile sail up the River Derwent to the finish in Hobart’s enormous harbour.
Robert Oatley’s 100-footer Wild Oats was the line honours winner, but the IRC winner was the 51-footer Secret Men’s Business. We finished 19th on handicap, but at least we knew where we had lost out.
Hobart gives a tremendous reception to all the boats and was alive with sailors and spectators as most boats stayed on to see in the New Year there, which creates a massive party with a lovely atmosphere. I had always wanted to sail this race, so that’s another box now ticked, but I would not rule out a return in the future as my trip Down Under was good fun.
© Not to be reproduced without written permission from Fernhurst Books Limited.
Knox-Johnston On Seamanship & Seafaring is written by Robin Knox-Johnston. Robin Knox-Johnston rose to fame in 1969 when he became the first person to sail non-stop and solo around the world. In an illustrious sailing career he has also set records for the fastest circumnavigation and last raced solo round the world in 2007, aged 68. He was knighted in 1995.