Sydney To Hobart Boxing Day Race Start

The racing start is amazing, it’s such an adrenalin fuelled time. You start cruising the harbour, spot of food, a good motivational speech making sure we are aware of what is going on due to the number of boats (100+) keep and eye out, tell the skipper don’t assume they have seen it, quick reaction and going for it, Andy wants us to focus on Concentration, Observation, Communication and Kick ass… COCK!! Ha ha..

I am in the pit for race start which is exciting, although most of the work is done before there are still things we need to do as we get out of the harbour through the heads. Its amazing seeing all the boats, first we have to fly the storm gear, this is unique to Hobart after the storm of 1998. The harbour is bustling with activity, not just race boats but spectator boats and the usual ferries and traffic. Chaos but such an amazing wonderful sight! Its edge of the seat excitement and the crew are pretty tense and quiet….

We start really well, brilliant position off the line, tacking quickly up the harbour and things are going really well but 5 minutes into the race and there is noise and flapping, unbelievable the new jib sheet for the head sail has snapped it’s mad rush to tack over, rerun the line and tack back… tense but we get it done and keep on racing still trying to hold position.

We are good coming out of the heads ready to hoist the spinnaker, up it goes and the next thing we hear a cry from one of the boats alongside us… “ hey your spinnaker is upside down mate!”, so straight back down and we have to take time to fix the issue. Finally get the kite up the right way and we are off and sailing.

A great sail down the coat of NSW all day under spinnaker, its hard work trimming all the time so we are on rotation in our shifts for each role so we don’t get tired. The night time is dark as there is no moon, so that makes the work a little more difficult. Things are going well, we have a great little meal in the evening (pasta and mince!) and the first day is finished with luckily not too much ground lost despite our incidents!