While the 100 footers from NSW; Wild Oats XI (Bob
Oatley) and Ragamuffin-Loyal (Syd Fischer), and
Queensland’s Wild Thing (Grant Wharington) and Peter
Millard/John Honan’s 98ft Lahana are the likely ones to
slog it out for line honours in a NSW versus Queensland match,
competition will be even more rife in the battle for the overall
win and the Tattersall’s Cup trophy.
“Although numbers are slightly down on last year’s 88 starters,
we are pleased to have the quality fleet we do,” the Cruising Yacht
Club of Australia Commodore, Howard Piggott said.
“We expect a spirited battle for line honours, especially
between Rolex Sydney-Hobart race record holder, Wild Oats
XI and the renamed Ragamuffin Loyal, which took line
honours last year,” he said
This year’s fleet includes seven previous overall winners
of the race, as well as all those whose dreams remain unfulfilled.
The 2011 winner, Loki (Stephen Ainsworth) heads the cast
of favourites for the 68th Rolex Sydney Hobart.
The Reichel/Pugh 63 has swept all before her in the past couple
of seasons, breaking records to win a couple of trebles along the
way. Loki’s latest effort was breaking the 13 year-old
record for a conventional yacht in the Audi Sydney Gold Coast Race
in August, and winning the race overall. If any boat can back up
and make it two in a row, Loki can.
Other winners unable to resist the urge to try again are: 2010
winner Secret Men’s Business 3.5 (Geoff Boettcher) and
Andrew Saies’ Beneteau First 40, Two True (2009), the
latest two of only five overall winners to come from South
Australia. The 1993 winner, Wild Rose, a 30 year-old Farr
43 owned by Roger Hickman, is always a contender, despite her
age.
Boettcher, who with his crew and Reichel/Pugh 51 sat out the
2011 race, commented: “Just one more – and after having last year
off, we are ready and looking forward to the challenge. We’ll be
coming to Sydney a couple of times before the race to get the boat
in order.”
The 2008 winner, Quest is back, her owner, Bob Steel
(NSW), also won the race and
the Rolex Yacht-Master timepiece with a different boat in
2002.
Love & War won three times; in 1974 and 1978 with
original owner, the late Peter Kurts, and in 2006 with his
navigator and friend Lindsay May at the helm, with the blessing of
Simon Kurts, who will take the boat to Hobart this time.
Finally, and unforgettably, there is the 2005 record holder and
treble winner, Wild Oats XI (Mark Richards, skipper), from
NSW.
“Loki, last year’s winner, has shown continuing good
form, but she will have strong competition from the 50 footers in
particular; Secret Men’s Business 3.5, Quest, Calm, Shogun
and Living Doll,” Commodore Piggott commented.
“There will be strength in all divisions; from which will
come the overall winner for the Tattersall’s Cup,” he said.
Among them are the two smallest previous winners in the fleet;
the Hick 35, AFR Midnight
Rambler (NSW), which won the race under the guidance of
Ed Psaltis and Bob Thomas in 1998. It has been reincarnated as
Luna Sea by new owner, James Cameron, who will be joined
by the 1988 winner, Illusion, a Davidson 34 originally
owned by Victorian, Gino Knezic. It will sail south with new owner,
Kim Jaggar and Travis Read (NSW).
Joining them is the oldest boat and smallest boat in the fleet,
Sean Langman’s Maluka of
Kermandie, built in 1932 and measuring 9.01 metres.
Sailing with his son and daughter last year, Langman and his
classic gaff rigger had the distinction of finishing last on line.
He saw the irony in hearing at sea that his former yacht,
Loyal, had taken line honours. However, his
34th overall was a good result.
In the middle are the ’40’s; those boats whose owners felt
robbed last year, when looking good in the final 24 hours of their
race, were caught in no-man’s-land when the breeze faded and died
as a change came through.
The ‘Beneteau brigade’, namely the Beneteau First 40’s, will try
again and include Blunderbuss (Tony Kinsman, Qld),
Wicked (Mark Welsh, Vic) and Lunchtime Legend
(Robbo Robertson, Qld), which last year finished with exactly the
same corrected time as 2009 winner, Two True.
One can’t go past reigning Blue Water Point Score champion
Victoire, Darryl Hodgkinson’s Beneteau 45, either.
With the fleet represented by every state of Australia and the
ACT, and four international entries with unknown Hobart form,
anyone could win. Internationals have figured strongly in previous
line honours and overall results, with the USA’s Rosebud
(Roger Sturgeon) winning overall in 2007, while British yacht
Aera (Nicholas Lykiardopulo), took the
honours in 2004.
It stands to reason that the first ever Lithuanian entry,
Ambersail (Simonas Steponavicius) with his Volvo 60, is
coming all this way with winning mind, as is the case for the
race’s second ever Japanese entry, KLC Bengal 7, the
Humphrey’s 54 of Yoshihiko Murase. His yacht slots nicely into that
’50’s’ range that seem to win their fair share of Rolex
Sydney Hobarts.
Commencing at 1pm AEDT on Boxing Day, December 26 on Sydney
Harbour, the fleet will set sail from two start lines off Nielsen
Park, Vaucluse. The bigger boats will lead off, before the fleet
converges out to sea to round a mark one nautical mile east of the
Heads before heading to Tasmania, where the Royal Yacht Club of
Tasmania will take on the finishing
duties.
The start of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race will be
broadcast live on the Seven Network throughout Australia, webcast
live to a global audience on Yahoo!7 and the Australia Network
throughout the Asia Pacific Region.
The final fleet for this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart will be
announced at the CYCA on the morning of Tuesday 27 November
2012.
By Di Pearson, RSHYR Media
