2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart
Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2014 9:32 pm
Well, your ARSE correspondent will not be in Hobart for this year's 70th race so this will be a fairly uninformed thread compared with previous years.
WEATHER.
So far, nothing out of the box. Expect to hear plenty of nonsense about the "treacherous Bass Strait crossing" as winds pick up around Gabo Is. This, of course is mostly bunkum as the boats never actually enter Bass Strait. But the wooly stuff is coming and the open sea to the East of the Strait will definitely be affected by it. Expect some gear damage and probable retirements. Let's hope that's all.
The race is forecast to start in a 15kt southeasterly, increasing to 20-30 kts at sea and with significant levels of chop developing. This will affect the smaller boats unless it starts to get really rough. At the big end of the fleet, those with a good combination of righting moment (Loyal, Comanche, Ragamuffin) and penetration (Wild Oats XI) will have the advantage. It will be a question of who has their boat best prepared. You can probably expect 36 hours of the wind on the snotter. Don't expect to see speeds like we saw last year, when Loyal planed her way down the Tassie coast at average speeds exceeding 28 kts.
The upshot of all this is that it will be what we call "a small boat race". This means that the handicap honours (the real race) will probably go to a small boat, rather than a maxi. This is because the conditions will probably become more favourable as the race goes on so the big boats will already be in port when the smaller boats start getting into more favourable weather. That means the crews of the big boats get to sit in Hobart and watch as they drop further down the standings. Although last year had the potential to favour the maxis, it was eventually won by the Cookson 50 Victoire. The crew of this boat was basically that of Secret Men's Business 3.5 which won the race in 2011 but although they are a different crew this year, Darryl Hodgkinson will have a chance of repeating the feat if he plays his cards right. I would expect the winner to come from this part of the fleet.
A real roughie is Chutzpah (Bruce Taylor) from Victoria. Long overdue for a win and the weather conditions might just suit her.
BOATS.
The focus this year is on the new boat Comanche and two very heavily modified boats Ragamuffin and Rio 100.
Comanche comes from the drawing board of Guillaume Verdier/VPLP and this is her first major race, having been launched only a couple of months ago. This is a brute of a boat. Verdier is well known in IMOCA circles but is slowly moving into IRC, etc. He has plenty of experience designing to box rules with radical sail plans and technology like swing keels and water ballast but this is, as far as I am aware, his first shot at a maxi rater. The shape is very reminiscent of Juan Kouyoumdjian's Loyal and the VO70 class boats, such as Black Jack and Giacomo, which he also designed. It has an extremely broad, hard chine stern which will help both with planing and righting moment if they get a good cross wind happening but that seems unlikely. Owned by Netscape founder Jim Clark and his Australian wife, former supermodel, Kristy Hinze, it will be the one to watch simply because it is the newest boat. It was built in Maine by Hodgdon Yachts and is of a more conventional construction than say, Loyal, though it is more radical and has an even wider stern. The skipper, Ken Read, is one of the best in the business. He might even be the best. You can do chinups on what he says. Comanche have managed to lasso American navigator Stan Honey back from Loyal after last year's race and they have three or four Australians floating about among their crew. They will be a factor in Line Honours as long as they stay in one piece. A combination of a top crew and Verdier's IMOCA experience will help there.
[youtube] [/youtube]
Ragamuffin 100 is the original "Paddy's Axe". This is so radically changed that it's almost a different boat from that which took like honours in 2011. What started out as a Greg Elliott design about ten years ago has had everything cut off below decks and an entirely new hull built underneath her. Designer Andy Dovell has also radically modified the deck and included water ballast. The boat only went back into the water a couple of months ago and is still an unknown quantity but IMHO, modifications like this are not often the way to go. We shall see. Ex-patriot American Dovell has included similar features to Comanche and Loyal like razor-sharp chines and twin rudders but she is a bit narrower, which may help in the early stages of the race. Syd Fischer is now 87 years old and this will be his 47th Hobart. Among his crew is paralympic sailor Liesl Tesch ,who launched the boat.
[youtube] [/youtube]
The third of these new or recycled boats is Rio 100. This is the old Bakewell-White designed boat which has been going to Hobart for most of the last 11 years. Originally christened Zana, she became Konica Minolta and later Lahana. She missed last year's event and I admit I wondered why. Well, she was sold to an American owner Manouch Moshayedi, who literally had her cut in half and rebuilt from there by Cooksons in New Zealand. The back 50 feet and everything that went with it has gone and been replaced by a new stern with the expected hard chines and twin rudders. Another result is that she has been lengthened out from 98 to 100 feet. They also got rid of her water ballasting system and believe the boat now has much the same righting moment but weighs 6 or 7 tonnes less. I dunno. This boat just looks wrong to me, in much the same way that Wild Thing did. The sail plan just doesn't look right and I suspect the mast is too far forward. The boom looks too short. Experience with these new broad stern designs suggests that the extra flotation in the stern can be better utilised by pushing the mast further aft. This allows bigger and more powerful headsails without causing the bow or stern to mush down into the water. I could be wrong because pics of her sailing don't show any evidence of a problem.
Wild Oats XI is back again for a shot at he 8th line honours win. The weather will decide what happens this year but the choppy conditions could suit "Old Skinny" better than some of the newer and modified designs. You may recall last year, they added some retractable wings to her hull, supposedly to improve her performance while planing. How much real difference this made is open to speculation. I'm not convinced they even used them and I have never seen photographs of them being used in anger. But if they can stop the bow from spearing into the wave in front, they can save a lot of trouble. Notwithstanding, she still managed to destroy two spinnakers under running conditions last year. This would be the exact problem these modifications should prevent. Skipper Mark Richards claims the wings improve controllability but doesn't elaborate any further. Over the winter they extended these wings by two metres but the performance actually decreased so they appear to have reverted to the old ones.
Still a hot prospect for line honours.
After last year's first tilt Loyal is back for a return match and hopefully she can realise a bit more of her potential. They took some weight out of her keel over the winter but she is still fundamentally the same. After becoming seriously ill last year, sailing master Michael Coxon is back on board, which will help considerably. Their performance in the early part of last year's race would have benefitted from his presence. You could see the boat looked a bit unsettled early on but they knuckled down, survived the bad weather and steamed into Hobart in very impressive style. I know I was impressed. IF the conditions suit, Loyal could end up fighting this out with Comanche. They are similar in concept and I suspect, similar in performance. Despite being six years older than Comanche, Loyal still has a few tricks up her sleeve and some design features which give her some advantages.
Not my first pick for line honours be she'll still be in it.
The VO70s, Black Jack and Giacomo will fight it out again this year and will be at a considerable advantage should the weather turn nasty. With the passing of her namesake this year Black Jack will have a point to make. Her performance after blowing her main last year was very impressive.
WEATHER.
So far, nothing out of the box. Expect to hear plenty of nonsense about the "treacherous Bass Strait crossing" as winds pick up around Gabo Is. This, of course is mostly bunkum as the boats never actually enter Bass Strait. But the wooly stuff is coming and the open sea to the East of the Strait will definitely be affected by it. Expect some gear damage and probable retirements. Let's hope that's all.
The race is forecast to start in a 15kt southeasterly, increasing to 20-30 kts at sea and with significant levels of chop developing. This will affect the smaller boats unless it starts to get really rough. At the big end of the fleet, those with a good combination of righting moment (Loyal, Comanche, Ragamuffin) and penetration (Wild Oats XI) will have the advantage. It will be a question of who has their boat best prepared. You can probably expect 36 hours of the wind on the snotter. Don't expect to see speeds like we saw last year, when Loyal planed her way down the Tassie coast at average speeds exceeding 28 kts.
The upshot of all this is that it will be what we call "a small boat race". This means that the handicap honours (the real race) will probably go to a small boat, rather than a maxi. This is because the conditions will probably become more favourable as the race goes on so the big boats will already be in port when the smaller boats start getting into more favourable weather. That means the crews of the big boats get to sit in Hobart and watch as they drop further down the standings. Although last year had the potential to favour the maxis, it was eventually won by the Cookson 50 Victoire. The crew of this boat was basically that of Secret Men's Business 3.5 which won the race in 2011 but although they are a different crew this year, Darryl Hodgkinson will have a chance of repeating the feat if he plays his cards right. I would expect the winner to come from this part of the fleet.
A real roughie is Chutzpah (Bruce Taylor) from Victoria. Long overdue for a win and the weather conditions might just suit her.
BOATS.
The focus this year is on the new boat Comanche and two very heavily modified boats Ragamuffin and Rio 100.
Comanche comes from the drawing board of Guillaume Verdier/VPLP and this is her first major race, having been launched only a couple of months ago. This is a brute of a boat. Verdier is well known in IMOCA circles but is slowly moving into IRC, etc. He has plenty of experience designing to box rules with radical sail plans and technology like swing keels and water ballast but this is, as far as I am aware, his first shot at a maxi rater. The shape is very reminiscent of Juan Kouyoumdjian's Loyal and the VO70 class boats, such as Black Jack and Giacomo, which he also designed. It has an extremely broad, hard chine stern which will help both with planing and righting moment if they get a good cross wind happening but that seems unlikely. Owned by Netscape founder Jim Clark and his Australian wife, former supermodel, Kristy Hinze, it will be the one to watch simply because it is the newest boat. It was built in Maine by Hodgdon Yachts and is of a more conventional construction than say, Loyal, though it is more radical and has an even wider stern. The skipper, Ken Read, is one of the best in the business. He might even be the best. You can do chinups on what he says. Comanche have managed to lasso American navigator Stan Honey back from Loyal after last year's race and they have three or four Australians floating about among their crew. They will be a factor in Line Honours as long as they stay in one piece. A combination of a top crew and Verdier's IMOCA experience will help there.
[youtube] [/youtube]
Ragamuffin 100 is the original "Paddy's Axe". This is so radically changed that it's almost a different boat from that which took like honours in 2011. What started out as a Greg Elliott design about ten years ago has had everything cut off below decks and an entirely new hull built underneath her. Designer Andy Dovell has also radically modified the deck and included water ballast. The boat only went back into the water a couple of months ago and is still an unknown quantity but IMHO, modifications like this are not often the way to go. We shall see. Ex-patriot American Dovell has included similar features to Comanche and Loyal like razor-sharp chines and twin rudders but she is a bit narrower, which may help in the early stages of the race. Syd Fischer is now 87 years old and this will be his 47th Hobart. Among his crew is paralympic sailor Liesl Tesch ,who launched the boat.
[youtube] [/youtube]
The third of these new or recycled boats is Rio 100. This is the old Bakewell-White designed boat which has been going to Hobart for most of the last 11 years. Originally christened Zana, she became Konica Minolta and later Lahana. She missed last year's event and I admit I wondered why. Well, she was sold to an American owner Manouch Moshayedi, who literally had her cut in half and rebuilt from there by Cooksons in New Zealand. The back 50 feet and everything that went with it has gone and been replaced by a new stern with the expected hard chines and twin rudders. Another result is that she has been lengthened out from 98 to 100 feet. They also got rid of her water ballasting system and believe the boat now has much the same righting moment but weighs 6 or 7 tonnes less. I dunno. This boat just looks wrong to me, in much the same way that Wild Thing did. The sail plan just doesn't look right and I suspect the mast is too far forward. The boom looks too short. Experience with these new broad stern designs suggests that the extra flotation in the stern can be better utilised by pushing the mast further aft. This allows bigger and more powerful headsails without causing the bow or stern to mush down into the water. I could be wrong because pics of her sailing don't show any evidence of a problem.
Wild Oats XI is back again for a shot at he 8th line honours win. The weather will decide what happens this year but the choppy conditions could suit "Old Skinny" better than some of the newer and modified designs. You may recall last year, they added some retractable wings to her hull, supposedly to improve her performance while planing. How much real difference this made is open to speculation. I'm not convinced they even used them and I have never seen photographs of them being used in anger. But if they can stop the bow from spearing into the wave in front, they can save a lot of trouble. Notwithstanding, she still managed to destroy two spinnakers under running conditions last year. This would be the exact problem these modifications should prevent. Skipper Mark Richards claims the wings improve controllability but doesn't elaborate any further. Over the winter they extended these wings by two metres but the performance actually decreased so they appear to have reverted to the old ones.
Still a hot prospect for line honours.
After last year's first tilt Loyal is back for a return match and hopefully she can realise a bit more of her potential. They took some weight out of her keel over the winter but she is still fundamentally the same. After becoming seriously ill last year, sailing master Michael Coxon is back on board, which will help considerably. Their performance in the early part of last year's race would have benefitted from his presence. You could see the boat looked a bit unsettled early on but they knuckled down, survived the bad weather and steamed into Hobart in very impressive style. I know I was impressed. IF the conditions suit, Loyal could end up fighting this out with Comanche. They are similar in concept and I suspect, similar in performance. Despite being six years older than Comanche, Loyal still has a few tricks up her sleeve and some design features which give her some advantages.
Not my first pick for line honours be she'll still be in it.
The VO70s, Black Jack and Giacomo will fight it out again this year and will be at a considerable advantage should the weather turn nasty. With the passing of her namesake this year Black Jack will have a point to make. Her performance after blowing her main last year was very impressive.