Sydney to Hobart yacht race, live updates from the 79th edition of ...

The 2024 Sydney to Hobart is underway!

10 minutes agoThu 26 Dec 2024 at 2:00am

The five-minute warning!

15 minutes agoThu 26 Dec 2024 at 1:55am

Race record possible but difficult weather ahead for Sydney to Hobart fleet

26 minutes agoThu 26 Dec 2024 at 1:44am

Despite some close calls, we haven't had any protests or coming togethers, thank goodness.

Last year Scallywag opted to make a 720-degree turn to avoid a later time penalty after coming very close to Andoo Comanche.

Things are changing rapidly, with the bigger boats having to avoid smaller craft.

Wild Thing 100 - another of the four supermaxis - has nearly had a disaster! They made a late, late tack to avoid Celestial, and the boat came close to keeling over!

Disaster avoided, but that's a tough start.

It's LawConnect followed by Master Lock Comanche up front with Celestial V70 in third.

Cheers, and full speed ahead as the main boats get going.

Law Connect and Master Lock Comanche, with Wild Thing 100 and Willow.

LawConnect seems to have the early jump! That's a surprise.

Some smaller boats like Caro and Zeus, the latter an I52 skippered by Michael Firmin, have had a strong start. 

Key Event

10m agoThu 26 Dec 2024 at 2:00am

The gun goes off, and the 79th edition of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race is underway!

The start of the race is always a dramatic moment.

The fleet gathers, readying on the northern line in the harbour, with the aim to time it right to hit the start line perfectly on time.

If people get it wrong and cross the line early, they will incur a penalty and have to go back behind the line and start again, losing plenty of ground to their competitors.

If crews haven’t spotted an error — or aren’t quite sure — they will be contacted by race organisers within five or 10 minutes of the start, and told to return.

It's windy out on the harbour, boats are criss-crossing the harbour as they get into position. We will be under way very soon!

Key Event

15m agoThu 26 Dec 2024 at 1:55am

The gun has been fired on Sydney Harbour to mark the five-minute warning!

On board the 104 boats, it's time to check every last box before the race starts and it's full speed to Hobart!

There are two main start lines — four in all — off Nielsen Park.

The biggest boats — including the four supermaxis and the next biggest group of 'mini-maxis' (18 to 24m) will start off the front line, just north of Shark Island.

The rest of the fleet goes from the southern lines. Each of those lines have 0.2 nautical miles between them.

In order to ensure a safe fair start to the race, there are two marks that boats have to go round at the Sydney Heads.

Boats on the northern line will go round 'Victor Mark', while boats on the three southern lines will head for 'X-Ray Mark'.

This is designed to equalise the distance travelled to the Heads by all boats. There is one final spot, 'Mark Zulu', which is one nautical mile east of the Heads.

Once the fleet rounds that mark, there is nothing stopping them except the winds until they get to Hobart.

At midday AEDT, an exclusion zone was put in place on the harbour, from Garden Island and Bradley's Head to a line between North Head and Macquarie Light.

12:50pm AEDT: 10-minute warning, the event flag is raised and a cannon sounds.

12:55pm AEDT: 5-minute warning, the Code flag P is raised and a cannon sounds.

1:00pm AEDT: The race begins with another fire of the cannon, and the even and Code flag P are dropped.

Last year LawConnect and (then Andoo) Comanche battled it out for Line Honours to finish the race first. LawConnect claimed it in 2023 by just 51 seconds.

Now Master Lock Comanche co-skipper Matt Allen said this battle will be a revenge mission.

“We’ve got one goal. We wanna lock this up," he said this morning.

“There’s a lot of people who sailed on this boat before, last year, who missed out last year narrowly and this year they are hungrier than ever,” he said.

- Reporting from ABC's Myles Houlbrook-Walk

Key Event

26m agoThu 26 Dec 2024 at 1:44am

The BOM's senior forecaster Gabrielle Woodhouse gave the final briefing to crews this morning ahead of the race.

It should be a fast start to the Sydney to Hobart, with 15 knot (27.7kmh) winds on Sydney Harbour, rising to 20 knots (37kmh) past the Heads. 

These strong north-easterly winds could drive the big boats south down the NSW coast on day one, and potentially even bring the race record - LDV Comanche’s 2017 mark of one day, nine hours, 15 minutes and 24 seconds - within striking distance.

The issue will come overnight into tomorrow, with winds rising to 30 knots (55.5kmh) and even near gale-force south of Narooma, before a strong change to westerly/north-westerly winds in the morning.

For the leaders crossing Bass Strait they could be facing 35 knot (64.8kmh) winds and four metre waves, making the latter stages of the race more than challenging.

In early December, a series of races are held which act as preparation for boats in the Sydney to Hobart. The Australian Maxi Championship involves four races, culminating in the Big Boat Challenge on Sydney Harbour.

This year's series featured nine boats, including three of the four supermaxis in the Sydney to Hobart.

Master Lock Comanche won all four races, with LawConnect second and Wild Thing 100 third.

All these races are only a vague pointer, given that most of them are only one to two hours long.

The Cabbage Tree Island race is closest to the Sydney to Hobart in length, with Master Lock Comanche's uncorrected winning time of 15 hours 54 minutes and 40 seconds.

Master Lock Comanche’s winning margin in the Cabbage Tree Island race was 38 minutes, suggesting that it has the advantage over LawConnect - but things can change quickly during the Sydney to Hobart.

The other thing to note is that Master Lock Comanche, despite its dominance in being first across the line, only came sixth overall (on handicap). LawConnect came fourth, but it was the 'mini-maxis' - boats 60 to 80 feet long (18-24m) - who took the spoils.

Wild Oats X, skippered by Sandy Oatley, came first overall, with Whisper second and the WA boat Moneypenny third. Of these three, only Whisper is in the fleet for this year's Sydney to Hobart.

The John H Illingworth Challenge Cup goes to the winning boat on line honours, the one that is first across the line in Hobart.

But given that realistically there are less than five true contenders for that prize each year, the real glory comes with the George Adams Tattersalls Cup, which goes to the overall winner of the race on corrected time.

In the overall race, all boats are handicapped, racing style, to try and even the race so that smaller vessels are not disadvantaged against the supermaxis.

We have our ABC explainer on the big race to answer all of your questions, such as the length of the race, the course that's followed, the start and how it operates, the race's history and how to watch today's action.

To get to the point of the vision, the race can be watched on Nine Network's free-to air television channel as well as 9Now's live stream and video-on-demand service.

You can also watch a webcast of the live broadcast on the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race YouTube Channel - CYCATV.

You can read more of James Dunlevie's guide here:

For the vast majority of people taking part in this year's Sydney to Hobart, it is their sailing equivalent of a grand final.

But for a few crews in this year's race, the Sydney to Hobart is also a qualifier - for the marathon Melbourne to Osaka double-handed race next year.

Mother-daughter duo Annette Hesselmans and Sophie Snijders are on-board Fika, a 14.9m Najad 490 boat.

Hesselmans sailed Melbourne to Osaka with her husband Jerry a few years back, but now she and daughter Sophie are gearing up for a crack at Pacific Ocean crossing that is the equivalent of nine Sydney to Hobart, back-to-back.

You can read more about their journey and their love of sailing, along with Peter Elkington the co-skipper of another double-handed boat Pacman (who is focused only on the Sydney to Hobart) in this feature:

The Sydney to Hobart is a world-renowned race, and it draws sailors and boats from across Australia and around the world. Once again this year there are a range of challengers from overseas.

The countries outside of Australia represented in the 2023 edition are: New Zealand (Caro), Hong Kong (Antipodes), New Caledonia (Poulpito), Philippines (Centennial 7), France (Cocody) and the USA (Bacchanal).

Among the Australian boats in the fleet, perhaps understandably, the highest number of entries from any one state are the 56 from New South Wales.

Queensland has 15 entries in the race, with 12 from Victoria, eight from Tasmania, four from South Australia and two from Western Australia.

Key Event

56m agoThu 26 Dec 2024 at 1:14am

When it comes to the race for line honours - the first across the line in Hobart it usually comes down to the supermaxis — boats of around 100 feet or 30.48m in length.

This year there are four supermaxis in the fleet.

They are:

LawConnect — owned and skippered by Christian Beck, with Sailing Master Tony Mutter - is going for back-to-back line honours wins. The boat — then known as Perpetual Loyal — also took line honours in 2016. LawConnect won last year, after finishing second three straight times in 2019, 2021 and 2022.

Master Lock Comanche — co-owned by Matt Allen and James Mayo, with Sailing Master Iain Murray - holds the record for the fastest finish in race history (one day, 9 hours, 15 minutes and 24 seconds, in 2017) and is a four-time line honours winner. Allen and Mayo managed to achieve the line honours / overall win double as part of the crew of Sovereign back in 1987.

Last year there was just 51 seconds between these top two boats in Hobart. If we get another finish like that, it will be a seriously entertaining race.

Wild Thing 100 - Owned by Grant Wharington and Adrian Seiffert, skippered by Wharington.

Formerly the 80-footer Stefan Racing, Wharington’s boat was extended to supermaxi length ahead of last year’s race.

The last of the four is Maritimo 100, owned and skippered by Bill Barry-Cotter. The boat has several experienced crew on board, including Mark Richards, the former skipper of Wild Oats XI.

Key Event

1h agoThu 26 Dec 2024 at 1:01am

Welcome to ABC's live coverage of day one of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

It's a clear, sunny Boxing Day in Sydney, and we are about an hour away from the start of the 79th edition of the blue water classic on Sydney Harbour.

As usual the headlines are around the supermaxis and the weather forecast — and this year we could be looking at the possibility of a race record, but also some extremely challenging weather as the fleet of 105 boats heads south.

I'm Andrew McGarry, and I’m delighted to be bringing you the action as the fleet navigates the Heads and gets cracking on the way to Hobart.