The Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race must be one of the most intensely-analysed offshore racing events in the world, providing four or five days of close-fought competition to be looked at every which way while the Northern Hemisphere is largely in a state of hibernation reinforced by post-Christmas torpor. Yet somewhere in the midst of all the pre-race predictions, at least one pundit was heard suggesting - when the last pre-race weather forecast was posted - that there was no way anyone was going to get anywhere near the record, and the best the leading Super Maxi could hope to do was finish in the usual overnight calm at Hobart around 0200hrs on the morning of Wednesday, December 29th East Australian Time.
The 30.5 metre (100 foot) maxi yacht Black Jack, owned by Peter Harburg and skippered by Mark Bradford, secured Line Honours at the 76th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race
Christian Beck’s LawConnect held the lead on the water more than one occasion
SHK Scallywag 100 was the third maxi to finish the 76th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race
Well, failure is an orphan but success has many fathers. So doubtless there’ll be dozens who’ll claim they said it, though for the life of me at the moment I can’t remember who it actually was. But as Peter Harburg's RP100 Black Jack crossed the line in the usual Hobart overnight calm at 01:37:17 on Wednesday, December 29th AT, somebody must be giving himself or herself a pat on the back, knowing that whatever others may claim, it was they who predicted it.
Black Jack approaches Tasman Island, the southernmost point of the 628nm course
The other Super Maxis LawConnect (Christian Beck) and SHK Scallywag (Seng Huang Lee, Hong Kong) also finished in the dark, but Black Jack stays ahead of them on corrected time. However, as the Race Tracker reveals, just under a hundred miles from the finish the three TP 52s Smuggler, Ichi Ban and Celestial seem glued together as they shape up for the hopefully stronger daylight winds of Tasmania, and the possibility of a reasonably brisk fiinish with the last of the evening breeze into the Derwent River, an outcome which would set the first of the trio in a good place for the overall win.
As often as not Smuggler (Sebastian Bohm) and Celestial (Sam Hynes) have been ahead of Ichi Ban, the defending champion, during the racing down from Sydney. But as we enter the End Game, there’s a feeling that the Matt Allen/Gordon Maguire team on Ichi Ban are like the seemingly sleeping cat, apparently immobile at the foot of the apple tree while some tuneful bird is singing merrily on the top branch. Quicker than the eye can see, the cat is on the top branch, and all is silence as a few tiny feathers float away on the breeze.
Line Honours presentation (L-R) Mr. Benoit Falletti (Rolex Australia), Peter Harburg (Owner Black Jack) and Mark Bradford (Skipper Black Jack)
