Sydney Hobart 2009
I natt går starten för legendariska Sydney Hobart.De två stora snackisarna är vädret och vem som blir först. Prognoserna har varit osäkra, ett tag spekulerades det i att man skulle kunna klara sig på under två dygn, men så verkar det inte bli. Nu verkar det bli kryss, som lättar ur och vrider med… Spännande. Intressanta diskussioner på SA.
Sedan gäller vadslagningen som vanligt vem som skall ta “line honours”. Aldrig har det varit så många stora båtar med. Någon av de här borde vara först:
- Wild Oats XI 1.933
- Alfa Romeo 1.897
- ICAP Leopard 1.872
- Investec LOYAL 1.864
- Etihad Stadium 1.846 (ändras med nya masten)
- YuuZoo 1.738
- Lahana 1.621
- Ichi Ban 1.615
- Ran 1.560
- Loki 1.496
- Rapture 1.476
- Limit 1.457
- Yendys 1.400
- Living Doll 1.396
Starten kan man följa live här. Annars är den officiella sajten bäst.
Man kan också följa ett antal team under själva racet:
- disAble-bodied Sailors sänder live + Twitter
- Merit sänder live
- NORladies bloggar här.
- Ran finns på Twitter och sin blog
- Yuzoo (Ludde Ingvall & co) finns på webben, Facebook, Twitter & YouTube
CYCLONE LEGACY FOR ROLEX SYDNEY HOBART START
December 24, 2009
The low pressure system remnant of a tropical cyclone crossing the continent is setting up a tricky wind pattern for the Rolex Sydney Hobart race, for its Boxing Day start.
While the scenario is still changing, pockets of light breeze to be negotiated between two major wind systems look to have removed the prospects of a record-breaking run by one of the hi-tech collection of maxi yachts in the fleet.
Barry Hanstrum, senior forecaster for the NSW Bureau of Meteorology, predicts that the fleet of 100 boats will probably start in a light to moderate southerly, which would mean a spectacular spinnaker start in Sydney Harbour on Saturday, then a beat to windward in 10-20 knots as the fleet reaches the open sea.
While the wind would back to the east – northeast offshore, a low pressure trough would create lighter air inshore. A west to southwest change on Sunday night in the Bass Strait of 20-30 knots would continue into Monday, December 28.
Yendys’ Will Oxley, one of the fleet’s top navigators with 11 Hobart races on his CV, sees the situation on the first day as even trickier. “It looks quite important to stay in the east; in the west you are likely to run out of breeze earlier. The big boats will get into the nor’easterly breeze, clear of the trough, first.”
But Oxley believes the big boats will run out of breeze and “park” in the lee of the Tasmanian coast. “I think the race is going to be won or lost off the Tasmanian coast with the transitioning of that light wind area into the new breeze that comes on the 28th.”
Against the forecast and form shown in the Rolex Rating warm-up regattas, the two well-prepared, settled, Reichel/Pugh 100s Wild Oats XI (Bob Oatley) and Alfa Romeo (Neville Crichton) will lead the charge of the seven maxis towards the line honours finishing gun on Battery Point, Hobart.
The forecast, with its mix of light weather, does not suit Mike Slade’s Farr 100 ICAP Leopard, a great upwind performer. “We’d like strong upwind for the first 12 hours and then when you look down to Gabo Island going into Bass Strait, there’s pockets there of intense weakness and you could sit there for five hours,” said Slade.
“I’ve done that in this race in the 1990’s and the boys that had gone offshore in a different breeze came in six hours ahead of us.”
Top prospects for the race’s major prize, the Tattersall’s Cup for the overall winner on IRC handicap, are to be found in IRC division one, the 50 to 63 footers.
Among these are the TP52s, including last year’s Tattersall’s Cup winner Quest (Bob Steel), Ragamuffin (Syd Fischer), Cougar II (Alan Whiteley), all Farr designs. Others include the Reichel/Pugh near sisterships Loki (Stephen Ainsworth), R/P63 and Limit (Alan Brierty), R/P62; Farr 55 Living Doll (Michael Hiatt); R/P55 Yendys (Geoff Ross) and the UK-based Judel/Vrolijk 72, Ran (Niklas Zennstrom), the overall winner of this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race.
Ran’s tactician Adrian Stead, who has sailed in two Rolex Sydney Hobart Races, said of the official race forecast, “We knew it was going to be difficult getting out and away from Sydney depending on where the trough lines up.”
He said the weather was still evolving. “It’s not a straight-forward race, so that means we’ve got to think a lot. We’re going to see a range of conditions, which is good because there are a lot of boats here that are probably fast in one condition, slow in others. So I think it could be a well-balanced race.”
Other overseas boats
Sole American entry is Rapture, another 100-footer, a Farr-designed performance cruiser, owned by Brook Lenfest and crewed by a mix of international and Australian sailors. Since launching in 2007, she has raced and cruised more than 24,000 miles on a world circumnavigation. In Sydney, her crew has stripped out much of the cruising gear to reduce weight.
Lenfest, who competed in the 2002 RSH in his previous yacht, a Swan 86, enjoys the challenge of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race. “We have had a lot of races around the world sailed in lighter winds that are very predictable,” he says. “We like the unpredictability of the Hobart race and we like a lot of wind.”
Back for the second successive year is 41-Sud, an Archambault 40 from New Caledonia, skippered by Jean-Luc Esplaas, who with the Young 11 Noumea, survived the 1998 Sydney Hobart Race storm to place third in their division. Last year by contrast, 41-Sud slowed for 11 hours in calms off the Tasmanian coast to place seventh in division.
Also back for more after suffering in those calms last year is Pinta-M, a 1972 vintage aluminium Sparkman & Stephens 41, owned and skippered by Atse Blei from the Netherlands, which has raced successfully in North Sea events and finished fifth overall in IRC on corrected time in the 2005 Rolex Fastnet Race.
Pinta-M placed third in their division last year after being becalmed for a frustrating hour, only three miles from the finish. Blei decided to leave the boat in Australia to contest this year’s race, hoping for the robust upwind conditions that she enjoys most.
The Spanish entry Charisma, owned by banker Alejandro Perez Calzada from Barcelona, is on an around-the-world cruising mission with racing in major events along the way. This is another S&S IOR boat from the 1970’s, which under original owner Jesse Phillips raced for the USA in the Admiral’s Cup international teams series in 1973 and 1975.
Calzada bought the sturdy aluminium-hulled Charisma from a Seattle owner in 2003, restored her to better than new condition, fitted a new carbon mast and rig and began his global racing program with the 2007 Rolex Fastnet Race. She sailed the Newport Bermuda Race in 2008 and this year won her division in the Los Angeles-Honolulu Transpac Race.
A fleet of 100 yachts will compete in this year’s race, which starts at 1300 AEDT, 26 December 2009. The Rolex Sydney Hobart fleet will have crews representing the USA, UK, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, and New Caledonia as well as every Australian state.
Dec 25, 2009 @ 23:56
Det er flere nordmenn med, sjekk: http://xtreme.seilmagasinet.no/1261781255_sydney_hobart_race_en.html
Dec 26, 2009 @ 06:20
RAN verkar gilla förhållanden just nu, 11 knop framåt och 20+ i nosen :)
Som sagt bara synd hon inte seglar under svensk flagga :(
Dec 26, 2009 @ 06:20
http://blog.ranracing.com/
Dec 26, 2009 @ 11:15
ALFA ROMEO TAKES ROUND ONE
December 26, 2009
Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeo took round one of the battle of the maxis at the head of the 2009 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race with smart downwind tactics in Sydney Harbour.
After a two nautical-mile spinnaker run from the start off Shark Island, before a 10-knot south-southwesterly breeze, Alfa Romeo rounded the first clearing mark at Sydney Heads 30 seconds ahead of her near-sister Reichel/Pugh 100 design Wild Oats XI (Bob Oatley), with another 20 seconds to the British Farr 100-footer ICAP Leopard (Mike Slade).
These three strongly-sailed, professionally-managed maxis are favoured to lead the fleet into Hobart, 628n miles from the start.
Manoeuvring these giants for a downwind start among the smaller boats in the 100-boat fleet was challenging. With a minute to go, Alfa Romeo was caught ahead of the line and had to re-round to start on the gun.
Wild Oats XI, with speed and a smart spinnaker set, showed out as the early leader from a clear start near the middle of the long starting line spanning nearly the width of the harbour, followed closely by ICAP Leopard.
Alfa Romeo, starting nearer to the line’s pin end, sharpened up with pace to gain an overlap to leeward on Leopard. Off Watsons Bay on the harbour’s eastern shore, Alfa gybed away first on a patch of good pressure breeze; Wild Oats XI and Leopard followed. But as Alfa Romeo gybed again and came back fast on starboard gybe, she cleared them both to round the mark between the Heads clear ahead.
From there Alfa comfortably held her lead in a procession over the one nautical mile reach to the second clearing mark, another mile to seaward.
As the fleet then sheeted on to head south, another procession developed. Starboard tack on about 155 degrees was by far the gaining leg towards not only Hobart, but the favourable flow of the Eastern Australian current, so tacking away on to port and heading inshore was not an option for the boats behind Alfa.
Next to round the seaward mark was another 100 ft maxi, Investec Loyal (Sean Langman), followed by the UK Judel/Vrolijk 72 Ran (Niklas Zennstrom), which is one of the favourites to take the race’s major prize, the Tattersall’s Cup, for the overall winner on IRC corrected time.
She was followed by Lahana (Peter Millard/John Horan), the Brett Bakewell-White 98, ex-Konica Minolta; Rapture, Brook Lenfest’s 100ft Farr performance cruiser from the USA; Limit, the Reichel/Pugh 62 (Alan Brierty); Ludde Ingvall’s Simonis Voogd 90 YuuZoo, which took line honours in 2004; the R/P 63 Loki (Stephen Ainsworth); R/P 55 Yendys (Geoff Ross) and the Farr 55 Living Doll (Michael Hiatt).
Grant Wharington’s Jones 98 Etihad Stadium (ex-Wild Thing) retired with rig problems soon after starting. It was a near-miracle that Etihad Stadium even made the start after a two-week around-the-clock effort by crew members, mast-makers, and riggers to replace the mast broken on the delivery voyage from Melbourne.
The mast, a rebuild of a spare acquired from Neville Crichton, had to be cut in two for air-freighting from France to Sydney and re-rigged just in time for Etihad Stadium to get to the start line today without time for any testing under sail.
Wharington explained that ten minutes before the start, the crew discovered that the finely-tuned mast could not be kept in column. Misalignment of the runner blocks from the old rig meant that the runner tension of up to 15 tons could not be maintained.
“It was an incredibly tight set of circumstances and we needed everything to fall into place with 100 per cent agreement on everything to go to Hobart,” Wharington said. It’s an amazing feat to get to where we got, obviously disappointing just to miss out by the last one or two percent.
“I am enormously disappointed obviously and for my team more than anything because we’ve had probably 50 people working on this for the past two weeks and an enormous amount of input from every single person.”
Another sad retirement was the Inglis 39 She’s the Culprit (Todd Leary) from Hobart, seriously holed on the long journey home in a collision with another competitor (as yet unidentified) soon after the start.
Untypically for Sydney at this time of year, Boxing Day was wet and cold, which greatly reduced the size of the spectator fleet. Though with this came the benefit of also reducing the crush of powerboaters that often disrupt the fleet with their wakes once past the outer sea mark, which is beyond the spectator control areas inside the harbour.
Five hours after the start, with the sou’-wester freshening to 25 knots and a difficult short chop developing offshore, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s satellite yacht tracker system showed Alfa Romeo still leading by a mile from Wild Oats XI, which was just 0.2nm ahead of ICAP Leopard.
The 100-boat Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race fleet (including two yachts officially retired) has crews representing the USA, UK, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, and New Caledonia as well as every Australian state.
Dec 26, 2009 @ 12:53
Hej,
De kör dubble scoring! IRC o ORCi. Ta tex RUSH, hon har mättal i både och har aktuell plats per klass. Framtiden är redan här ;)
Larsa
Dec 26, 2009 @ 23:11
Undrar när dom ska få till sin förbannat dåliga yacht tracker på hemsidan ?
Skiten verkar ju inte gå att få till att funka överhuvudtaget.
Dec 27, 2009 @ 11:11
Funkar hyfsat för mig både på XP/Chrome, XP/IE8 samt Snow Leopard/Safari. SnowLeopard/Chrome inte helt ok.
Dec 27, 2009 @ 09:55
STOP-START TO HOBART
December 27, 2009
The Rolex Sydney-Hobart race fleet leaders stalled and stopped in calms off the far south coast of New South Wales earlier today. The smaller boats came up on a developing coastal sea breeze while the maxi leaders and 50-60-footers were stuck inshore this morning, trying to struggle around Green Cape and Gabo Island at the entrance to Bass Strait
Neville Crichton’s Reichel/Pugh 100 Alfa Romeo, which had led the race from Sydney Heads, was first of the three leading maxis to struggle into new pressure to pass Green Cape and sail to the west of the rhumb line (straight distance) course from Sydney to Tasman Island.
Alfa Romeo took off on a two-sail reach in a freshening east-northeaster and by 1800 was well into Bass Strait, 58 nautical miles south of Gabo Island with 330nm to go to the finish.
The three leading maxis were achieving extraordinary speeds in only 10-12 knots of breeze and on course for Tasman Island, the last major rounding landmark on the 628nm course.
Alfa Romeo, making 16.7 knots, was 16nm ahead of ICAP Leopard, the British Farr 100-footer owned by Mike Slade, with Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI, a very similar Reichel/Pugh 100, another 2nm behind Leopard and closing the distance. Wild Oats XI was making 16.7 kn to Leopard’s 16.2kn.
While these are very respectable speeds, the weather forecasting models are in agreement there will be more calms and light patches ahead. Respected yachting forecaster Roger Badham, who provides pre-race weather predictions to many top boats in the fleet, says: “The big guys will have some running in Bass Strait this afternoon, but there are still a lot of potholes between that and the finish,” Badham said. “Anyone of the three could finish first.”
One certainty is that Wild Oats XI’s race record, set at one day, 18hrs, 40mins, and 10secs in 2006, is in no danger. Given the calculations of speeds so far, Alfa would be expected to finish at 2030 Monday night, with Leopard and Wild Oats XI finishing after midnight.
But a westerly change turning moderate southwesterly is predicted for Tasmanian waters tomorrow – and that could still create those potholes of calm and light patches off the east coast under the wind shadow of Tasmanian’s high interior.
From Alfa Romeo, Murray Spence reported, as she picked up the light nor’easter, “We are now enjoying the sunshine; not the usual way to cross Bass Strait.” He said the crew was driving the boat hard today, although they were keen to get some rest after reefing most of the night had meant “intense work from all on board”.
Wild Oats XI skipper Mark Richards said Oats had been within three or four miles of Alfa Romeo in the morning calm before Alfa accelerated out of sight in the first of the new breeze. “There’s always the element of luck in these races and right now it has gone his (Alfa’s) way and not our way. But there’s a long way to go, so anything can happen yet,” said Richards. He said the attitude on the boat remained very positive. “We have a fantastic bunch of guys on board here; we won’t give up ’til the death.”
Adrian Stead, tactician on the British Jude/Vrolijk 72 Ran, the 2009 Rolex Fastnet Race winner, was upbeat even though the light conditions are not expected to suit this powerful boat. “We are just past Green Cape and the breeze is filling back in. We have done okay with the current but had a light morning. It’s nice to still see the maxis, but we are conscious of boats behind using the sea breeze this afternoon.”
The concertina effect completely scrambled the IRC corrected time calculations. The new IRC overall leader is reckoned to be Noel Cornish’s Sydney 47 Jude, crewed by a group of friends from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia.
The Sydney 38, Mondo, retired today with rigging problems and was heading to Eden, bringing the number of retired yachts to five, with 95 yachts still racing. The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race fleet has crews representing the USA, UK, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, and New Caledonia as well as every Australian state.
Dec 28, 2009 @ 06:49
THE RICH GET RICHER
December 27, 2009
The maxis leading the Rolex Sydney Harbour race fleet cleared a barrier of light air and calm in Bass Strait in the early hours of this morning to reach away on a new westerly flow at speeds of up to 20 knots.
Race leader Alfa Romeo, a Reichel/Pugh 100 owned by Sydney-based New Zealander Neville Crichton, first to clear the calm-creating ridge of high pressure to the north of Tasmania, opened a healthy lead of 30 nautical miles on her nearest maxi opponent for line honours, Mike Slade’s Farr 100, ICAP Leopard.
At 0700 Alfa was 22nm east of St Helens on Tasmania’s northeast coast, doing 14 knots and on course for Tasman Island, 41nm from the finish. She had 150 miles to sail and, at the present time, is expected to finish in the early evening.
ICAP Leopard, making 16.7 knots, was still three miles ahead of the race record holder Bob Oatley’s R/P 100 Wild Oats XI.
Alfa Romeo was not only on track for the line honours win; computer calculations had her leading the race for the Tattersall’s Cup, the race’s major prize for the overall winner on IRC handicaps.
Alfa, Leopard and Oats had gained a huge jump on the rest of the fleet. The fourth boat, Sean Langman’s Elliott 100 maxi Investec Loyal, was 80nm behind Wild Oats XI, 51nm east of Flinders Island making 9.2 knots; much slower than the leading trio.
Tom Addis, Alfa’s navigator, said: “We got the ridge pretty well. It’s always stressful going through transitions like that but we did as much homework as we could and it all went to plan. Our aim was to be first boat out and cross (the ridge) at the narrowest point. We made big gains on the way out.”
Ian Burns, co-navigator of Wild Oats XI, said: “We managed to cross the ridge as it was spreading up. We drove west to get around it, as did Alfa and Leopard; we never slowed more than six or seven knots. The guys behind us got swallowed and are still there. “We were last through the gate. Alfa gets richer and richer, looking like a handicap winner, too. It was a very calm night, pretty warm with a nice moon. And now new breeze is coming in quite nicely from the Banks Strait (northeast of Tasmania).”
Burns warned that the leaders face one more difficult wind situation in the lee of Tasmania. Tasmania’s high interior splits westerly flow into a nor’wester around the north of the island and a sou’wester around the south.
“We have one more transition to go, when the northwesterly meets the southwesterly,” said Burns. “But Alfa hasn’t made a missed step yet and they are unlikely to. So far, the race has favoured the leaders and in all probability will continue to do so.”
Five yachts have retired to date, and there are 95 yachts still racing. The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race fleet has crews representing the USA, UK, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, and New Caledonia as well as every Australian state.
Dec 28, 2009 @ 09:55
ONE MORE HURDLE
December 28, 2009
Rolex Sydney Hobart Race leader Neville Crichton’s Alfa Romeo leading over the final miles to the finish of the 628 nautical mile classic and with a healthy 17nm advantage over nearest rival Wild Oats XI faced a final hurdle — a strong sou’-wester that will give his weary crew a final hard upwind workout.
Through another day of stop-start sailing, Alfa retained the race lead she has held since clearing Sydney Heads. Wild Oats XI, a near sister Reichel/Pugh 100ft maxi, passed Mike Slade’s ICAP Leopard and gained on Alfa, which had led her by up to 30 miles throughout the morning.
The three supermaxis had opened a huge 80nm gap on the remainder of the fleet by emerging first from calms and light air created by a high pressure ridge in Bass Strait, then ran into more frustrating light patches off the east coast of Tasmania.
Leopard, the heaviest boat of the three, suffered most, down to just over a knot of boat speed at noon while Alfa and Oats also lost time “parking” in the soft spots.
Wild Oats XI passed Leopard and gained on Alfa to be 13nm behind off Maria Island, 70nm from the finish, with both yachts under spinnakers and traveling at about 14 knots on a nor’-wester that swung northeast under the influence of coastal sea breezes.
But the with the southwest change looming, the race for line honours was not over, Crichton warned. “We still have a lot of racing to do because we are 30 miles from Tasman Island, with another 40 miles into the Derwent and the forecast is for 20-30 knots on the nose, so anything can happen.
“It’s difficult because we are going to run into the southerly first and they are still under spinnaker. I guess we will have to wait until we get into the sou’-wester and see where they are, but we will certainly cover wherever possible.”
Australia’s most respected yachting forecaster Roger Badham sees another hurdle in the wind pattern: a curtain of total calm descending on the Derwent River over the last 11nm to the finish after 2100-2200 hrs.
Wild Oats XI tactician Iain Murray said there were still opportunities to catch Alfa after rounding Tasman Island. “It’s a difficult part of the day; sailing into the night. We’re in a north-easter; we know there is a sou’-wester around the corner, there will be a transition zone. It’s been a very challenging race, keeping the boat going the whole time, obviously doing a lot of tacking and gybing, changing sails. It keeps you right on your toes.”
At 1800, Alfa was only 5nm from Tasman Island, 17nm ahead of Oats and making 12.4 knots to Oats’ 11.9 kn with Leopard another six miles behind.
The next-sized group of boats, the 50-70 footers, got going again through the day after clearing the Bass Strait doldrums, to make fast progress in the nor’wester which freshened to 15-20kn off Flinders Island and 20-25kn off Eddystone Point at the north-eastern extremity of Tasmania.
On the final miles of the Bass Strait crossing they reached at speeds of 15-17kn under reaching headsails and staysails. One of them, the British Judel/Vrolijk 72 Ran (Niklas Zennstrom), jumped to the top of the overall IRC handicap calculations at 1800, followed by Yendys, Geoff Ross’ Reichel/Pugh 55, the TP52 Shogun (Rob Hanna), Reichel/Pugh 63 Loki (Stephen Ainsworth) and Farr 55 Living Doll (Michael Hiatt). Alfa Romeo, which until this morning had led the corrected time calculations, was back in 16th place. But this group still had to traverse the light patches along the Tasmanian coast.
For much of the day, the smaller boats in the back end of the fleet remained stuck in the Bass Strait doldrums or in light southerly headwinds. This afternoon Love & War, the 1970s vintage Sparkman & Stephens 47 that won the Tattersall’s Cup IRC overall in the 2006 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race in strong upwind conditions, was doing only 3.8kn and was calculated to be 72nd on overall IRC corrected time.
Another 1970s S&S design, the 41-footer Pinta-M (Atse Blei) from the Netherlands, was down to 2.7kn and 54th overall on IRC.
Ninety-five yachts are still racing, from a fleet of 100 starters, with five boats retired. The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race fleet has crews representing the USA, UK, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, and New Caledonia as well as every Australian state.
Dec 28, 2009 @ 13:46
Neville Crichton’s New Zealand supermaxi Alfa Romeo has taken line honours in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, crossing the finish line opposite Castray Esplanade on the Derwent River at 22:02:10hrs for an elapsed time of 2 days, 9 hours, 2 minutes and 10 seconds.
Averaging 10 knots in a reasonably consistent N/NW breeze on the river, the silver maxi made easy work of the final stretch. At last the seasoned crew of twenty two Australian, New Zealand and British round the world and America’s Cup sailors could stop looking over their shoulders.
Crichton led the race from the early hours of Sunday morning when she opened a 20 mile lead on Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI and Mike Slade’s British supermaxi ICAP Leopard.
Alfa Romeo passing Tasman Island on her way to victory. Tasman Island, 28 December 2009. Photo copyright Rolex / Kurt Arrigo
The win is sweet revenge for the New Zealand yachtsman. Four years ago these same, near identical Reichel Pugh designed maxis staged a dramatic dual in the 2005 Rolex Sydney Hobart.
That year it was Wild Oats XI’s turn, beating Alfa Romeo across the line by 49 minutes. Ironically, then it was first use of a wind shift off the NSW coast that gave Wild Oats XI her decisive break. This year it was Crichton’s turn to get the jump, again off the NSW coastline.
After that heartbreaking near miss, Crichton took Alfa Romeo to Europe to campaign on the northern hemisphere circuit. This victory marks his triumphant return to the Australian ocean classic.
The Mark Richards skippered Wild Oats XI still had 16 miles to go when Alfa Romeo crossed the line, with ICAP Leopard a further 24 miles astern.
Crichton’s victory brings to an end an extraordinary run of four straight line honours wins for Wild Oats XI, including a rare double line honours and handicap win, plus a new course record set in 2005.
This is the second line honours victory for Crichton. He won in 2002 Rolex Sydney Hobart with a previous Alfa Romeo.
Despite the late hour, one of the biggest spectator fleets in years, accompanied Alfa Romeo up the final few miles of the 628 nautical mile course, while a sizeable crowd gathered along the foreshore to welcome the victorious crew.
Tonight’s win caps an extraordinary tally of 143 line honours wins worldwide for the 100 footer. This year it has set new records in the HSBC Premier Coastal Classic and the TransPac race.