Sydney-Hobart 2014

It was a great start to watch.

 

Hope they got enough diesel to get to hobart.

 

I see Comanche uses grinders and battery power so at least it should be a true sailor when not charging the battery bank.

 

Yep, it's funny how some people have been saying that you NEED electric winches for 30 ton racing boats, when people used to handle 130 ton racing boats without any winches at all.

 

Comanche still needs engine power to move her massive canting keel just like four out of five of the 100 ftrs in the race.

 

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Really? So it's beyond human strength and ingenuity to work out a canting system linked to grinders? For hundreds of years people have moved extraordinary weights around using human power multiplied by levers and tackles; how come we can't do it now?

People built pyramids and created and ran line-of-battle ships with human power. Of course keels can be canted by human power and therefore the canters do not 'need' engines to do it.

 

Rags seems to have picked up the pace after midnight, perhaps as the breeze softens. She's passed Loyal which seems to have the handbrake on and is staying further out to sea. Loyal's got lots of smarts on board, with Tom Addis navigating (and he's got damn good spatial abilities as you can tell if you try to play computer games against him! ) , Merrington and Slingers, so I wonder why they are hanging out there?

12:57; tracker shows Comanche suddenly down to 8+ knots at 180+ heading; she's trying to get on the Palm Beach Bus. WOXI's deficit down to 2 miles and her boatspeed 5 knots better; has C hit a light patch off Tuross Heads?

EDIT - C tacks to cover, both now doing 12+ with a 1 mile gap to WOXI dead to leeward.

 

Here are the url's for the tracker etc:

Go Wild Oats !!!!!!

 

8 am, Hicko leading the overall race, but we all know how unreliable those calcs are and the Rose may hate a day of light beating.

Winds going light and Loyal is heading 330 over 2 tracker reports - have they discovered a breakage or is it a tracker issue? WOXI allegedly going 2 knots quicker than C at times, threatening but still behind.

 

Nah, - Commanche is still in the lead. Anyones race really

http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/tracker/


Perpetual Loyal is still heading back according to the tracker . gear problems ?

 

Loyal has pulled out of the race due to suspected hull delamination.

 

Agree with you CT, these boats are magnificent beasts ... but ... can't accept that they cannot be designed to be human powered.
Push button diesel burning cant is such a huge cheat.
But at least the big Indian has winches for the sails and rig.
At the same time WOXI has DSS - and that is very interesting. But she is a massive cheat. What has happened to the macho man of the sea?
Wimps pushing buttons?
Of course even a decade or more old, hand powered, old ORMA multihull would make them look like fowl mash. Let alone any of the new designs.

 

Is it Comanche's race? The two leaders appear to have missed the real light patch, WOXI has not broken through, and the forecasters are saying that the later stages will be largely power/running reaching which should be Comanche's real strength.

So if Comanche is a better allrounder (and yes, it's very early to make that call) what will happen to the supermaxi 'class' given that she allegedly cost vastly more than the earlier, smaller supermaxis? Will she do a Matador on them?

 

Wild Oats is in the lead for the first time( as far as I know)! Wild Oats is almost 2kts faster right now-hope there is nothing wrong with Comanche. The two are incredibly close after having sailed almost half of the race. WOXI 2nm ahead and faster at the moment. 389nm left.

UPDATE: Loyal hit something and is retiring with hull delamination.......

--8 retirements including Brindabela and Loyal...


Go Wild Oats!!!!!

 

The race website news service is ridiculous - four hours after people watching on forums noted that Loyal pulled out, the Rolex site is still reporting that it's in a neck and neck battle for third.

In this era of communication, running hours behind is not a good look.