With the warmth of the new Thursday morning beginning to make its presence felt in Tasmania, the chances are increasing of a favourable breeze to bring the Super-Maxi Andoo Comanche (John Winning) to the line honours victory in this often obtuse Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race 2023. It should all happen for the big boat just as this update is being posted, with the other leading Super-Maxi, Law Connect (Christian Beck), close astern.
Who knows, but the weather pattern has been so uncooperative (think thunderstorms, rain so heavy you couldn't see the stemhead from the cockpit, sudden violent squalls, and the main lines of wind of completely opposite directions within a few miles of each other) that simply being in Hobart, and the job done, could be a race winner.
MONEYPENNY STILL OVERALL LEADER
But as we write approaching 2000hrs Irish Time Wednesday, the overall leader is still reckoned to be Sean Langman's RP69 Moneypenny with Will Byrne of the National YC in Dun Laoghaire in the pivotal position of bowman, while second is the Tasmanian RP66 Alive aboard which Adrienne Cahalane has played a blinder as navigator/tactician, so either way there could be celebratory dancing in the streets of Dun Laoghaire and Dromineer.
In the rest of the fleet, the red-hot TP52s of Division I are slugging it out, though Sebastian Bohm's Smuggler (NSW) put significant miles between herself and Caro, Highly Sprung and Celestial by being on a more westerly line approaching Tasmania. However, as they all still have 250 miles or more to get to the finish, it's much too soon to make a final call.
Division 4, in which Richard Williams' Cookson 40 Calibre 12 held the lead for the first couple of days with Stephanie Lyons ex-Kinsale on the bow, is somewhat bewildering in checking the estimated final placings.
For Calibre - by no means the highest-rated boat - is shown at 345 miles from the finish, yet she's posted as being back in 11th slot, but the only classmate nearer that elusive Hobart line is Daniel Edwards' White Noise at second, with 342 miles to race. Yet the similarly-rated White Noise is shown at that second place, but Calibre 12 is shown as nine
places further back. Perhaps as normal office hours arrive in Hobart, we might see some re-ranking....
CINNAMON GIRL BACK UP TO THIRD IN TWO-HANDERS
A similar inexplicable wandering among the rankings has occurred from time to time with the Two-Handers, but now Kinsale's Cinnamon Girl (Cian McCarthy & Sam Hunt) is back in the frame as nature intended and indeed as the Jeanneau Board-room might have hoped, as her sister Sunfast 3300 Kraken III currently holds the lead. But again, it's bewildering, as Cinnamon is 366 miles from the finish and making 9 knots, while Kraken is 365 from the line but slightly slower. It's the eventual alignment of this sometimes conflicting data that is part of the fascination of following a 628-mile race on the other side of the world, in an area where the seasons are the exact opposite, the weather systems rotate in reverse directions, and they're having darkness when we're in daylight.
Race Tracker here
