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  • Cold. Wet. Uncomfortable. Must be a Rolex Sydney Hobart

Cold. Wet. Uncomfortable. Must be a Rolex Sydney Hobart

Cold. Wet. Uncomfortable. Must be a Rolex Sydney Hobart
Race Briefing for 2006 Rolex Sydney Hobart

Cold. Wet. Uncomfortable. Must be a Rolex Sydney Hobart

Maximus' co skipper Charles St Clair Brown summed it up. "The thing for us and the others is to keep these boats together whilst we handle some quite big seas. These will be hard conditions for boats such as ours which will be doing 12 plus knots over these waves.

The Bureau of Meteorology has told the 78 crews competing in the 2006 Rolex Sydney Hobart to expect at least two days of southerly winds for the opening stages of the race.

The Bureau says the race will start in S/SW winds around 10-15 knots, with the winds building to15 to 20 knots as they move down the coast, and reaching 20 to 25 knots in the south. The swell will also build as the fleet leaves Sydney, reaching 3 to 4 metres off the Illawarra coast.

The Bureau's Barry Hanstrum this morning warned the sailors "the toughest of the sailing conditions will occur tonight. With a 20 to 25 knot southerly, if we combine a three to four metre swell wave with a one to two metre sea then the significant wave height will be around five metres. Large seas and a stiff headwind for the fleet tonight."

Fortunately both the winds and the swell will ease on Wednesday, but will remain from the south.

So after a spectacular if somewhat frenetic spinnaker run down the harbour the crews will need to pile as much weight on the windward rail as possible, and prepare themselves for a grinding slog.

The first crucial tactical decision will need to be made quickly - to head out to sea to find the southerly current, or stay inshore. The current will be worth two to three extra knots over the ground but this advantage will be offset by bigger seas, which will slow the boats down. The seas are also likely to be very steep, with the fast maxis slamming off them at very high speeds. Falling off a particularly large wave at pace can damage these thoroughbreds.

So the second tactical decision is if and when to back off a bit. The first law in ocean racing is that you have to finish to win, but of course the three maxis, Wild Oats XI, Maximus and Skandia will be putting tremendous pressure on each other, and lurking behind will be the rugged Volvo 70s, who will still have their feet to the floor long after a maxi has decided discretion momentarily beats valour.

Maximus' co skipper Charles St Clair Brown summed it up. "The thing for us and the others is to keep these boats together whilst we handle some quite big seas. These will be hard conditions for boats such as ours which will be doing 12 plus knots over these waves. We have to work hard to keep the boat intact and the big trade off is the current south versus flatter water inshore."

Mark Richards, Wild Oats XI skipper predicted that the three maxis would all reach very high speeds and that the line honours race is wide open: "None of us have any idea what these boats are going to go like in these conditions in all the new configurations, so it's pretty exciting. I think we're going to be in for a fantastic tussle."

Mike Sanderson, the skipper of the Volvo 70 ABN AMRO ONE concedes that, with this forecast, line honours will be fought out by the maxis and that the Volvo 70s will have to concentrate on handicap: "It's a real drag race. We'll just try to stay as close to them as we can to be annoying on handicap.

"A line honours win for ABN AMRO was never going to be up to us. It was up to them (the 30m maxis) staying in one piece. Our chance has always been to have a serious shot at IRC (handicap)."

This is a good forecast for the maxis, which are blindingly fast to windward and will be looking to put a lot of distance between themselves and the rest of the fleet from the opening minutes of the race. A record is almost certainly out of the question, but in the forecast conditions the fastest maxi could also take the race out on handicap as well.

A lot will depend on what the weather does on Thursday. This is when the Bureau expects to see the wind in Bass Strait to finally swing to the north. By then the frontrunners will be approaching Hobart, and will have run their race. Will Thursday's northerlies be strong enough, and last long enough to push the back of the fleet down the course, closing the gap with the big boats that opened up in the first two days?

That is all in the future though. For now, what is certain is a hard, cold bash to windward.

"Last year we changed to a 15 tonne bulb (on the keel) for an upwind race and we went downwind with board shorts and thongs on and this year we've taken two and a half tons off the bulb and we're going to go upwind the whole way. It's a hard one to pick isn't it?" said Skandia’s skipper Grant Wharington this morning.

For further information on the 2006 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and to follow the fleet on ‘Yacht Tracker’ visit www.rolexsydneyhobart.com.  The race will start at 1:00pm (AEDT) on Tuesday 26 December.  The race start will be broadcast live on the Seven Network from 12:30pm (AEDT).