Sydney-Hobart record off table as LawConnect, Comanche tussle

Sydney to Hobart veteran Peter Shipway has declared the race file is not going to be damaged in 2023 as Andoo Comanche and LawConnect stay neck-and-neck on the head of the fleet.

The fleet was diminished to 95 boats following an evening of stormy climate, with rigging points leaving Georgia Categorical because the eighth boat to retire at roughly 11am on Wednesday.

The one South Australian yacht within the race, Clockwork, remains to be crusing. The Sydney 38 owned by Mary Ann Harvey and Andrew Lloyd, has simply handed Batemans Bay and is crusing a straight line down the NSW coast.

Just below an hour earlier, LawConnect overtook reigning line honours champion Comanche in what seems a race in two to achieve Structure Dock the quickest.

Fewer than a mile separated the pair of 100ft supermaxis, which had been into Bass Strait when LawConnect took the lead.

Comanche and LawConnect, the runner-up on line honours on the final three Hobarts, had been the 2 clear front-runners since simply out of Sydney Harbour and remained in step in a single day.

The 2 supermaxis started the journey down the NSW south coast at an honest clip however have since fallen off the tempo of the race file – in the future, 9 hours, quarter-hour and 24 seconds, set by Comanche in 2017.

At 10:30am on the second day of racing in 2017, Comanche was 130 nautical miles additional forward of this 12 months’s two front-runners.

“The race file is not any probability,” mentioned Shipway, who has gained the Hobart twice on handicap and 5 occasions on line honours.

“They’d have to complete by quarter previous ten tonight and so they’re nonetheless not even midway.

“I believe we’re most likely no less than 24 hours, possibly 30 hours, from a end. It could possibly be a daylight end tomorrow.”

Alive, the 66-footer that gained on handicap in 2018, was in third place at 10:30am, main a cluster of boats that included the race’s third supermaxi Wild Factor 100.

In-form URM Group, a contender for total honours, suffered injury to her jib and misplaced her code zero spinnaker on a stormy first evening at sea however stays within the race.

Hobart veteran Peter Jones, crew on Maritimo 52, mentioned there was “as a lot lightning as we’d ever seen” earlier than his boat grew to become certainly one of seven to retire by early Wednesday morning.

The best profile of these was SHK Scallywag, certainly one of 4 100ft supermaxis jostling for line honours, which suffered a damaged bow sprit and withdrew round 7pm on Boxing Day.

Considered one of eight extremely aggressive TP52s beginning the race, Maritimo was skippered by twin Hobart winner Michael Spies and boasted an skilled crew.

However she retired simply south of Jervis Bay after breaking a becoming on her forestay and ripping her mainsail, with 50-footer Sticky additionally retiring in a single day.

“We’re shattered, truly,” mentioned Jones.

“We had been attempting to work 1,000,000 methods round it, however at greatest we had been going to be at 50 per cent.”

The injury got here as stormy climate hit the fleet on the NSW south coast as predicted.

In style two-hander Currawong, the equal-smallest boat within the fleet, grew to become the sixth entrant to retire from the race simply after 8am on Wednesday.

Co-skippers Kathy Veel and Bridget Canham had been the primary all-female two-handed entry in final 12 months’s race and had hundreds of spectators greet them on arrival in Hobart on New Years Eve.

However a repeat of the jubilant scenes was to not be because the pair reported “a number of points” with their boat to race workers, bowing out south of Wollongong.

Fellow two-hander PacMan retired lower than an hour later with runner chainplate points, leaving the two-handed division at 15 boats after Rum Insurrection withdrew on Tuesday night.

– AAP

Supported by the Authorities of South Australia