Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race: Internationals long range racing

• NEWS
• 15 Dec, 2016 03:00:00 PM

Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race: Internationals long range racing

Getting a boat ready for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is a complicated exercise even when the yacht’s home port is the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia - it is exponentially more complex for interstate competitors - but to come from a totally different country really takes some serious forethought.

“We have spent eight years getting ready for the race,” says Kwangmin ‘Andrew’ Rho, skipper of Sonic, the first Korean entry ever.

“We chartered a TP52 to practice on for five years,” he says of the local TP52, Frantic. They had planned to buy a boat here, but could not find the boat they wanted.

“Kwangmin and I came last year to do the race; me on one of the Clipper yachts and him on Flying Fish,” says Sonic crew, Han Kim.

“It was much harder than I expected,” Rho says. He explains that while Korean sailors travel a lot to compete in Japan and other countries around the China Sea they mostly race inshore. There is not much offshore racing, though they are trying to change that.

But if eight years seems a long preparation time, it pales in comparison to the Americans aboard Joe Mele’s Swan 44 Triple Lindy. 

‘We’ve been building a serious ocean racing program for 10 years. We thought we were now ready,” Mele says of competing in offshore races up and down the American east coast, including four Newport Bermuda and Marion Bermuda races, and winning class at Charleston Race Week. She will race to Hobart with an American and Canadian crew.

Shipping a 44 foot yacht half way around the world is a pretty big deal, but a relieved Mele says that, thanks to a lot of help from CYCA stalwart David Kellett, it has all ended up “logistically easier than I thought it would be. David has been our guardian angel.

“Ever since I arrived here I have been getting more apprehensive,” Mele says. “Everyone I have talked to says that no sensible person ever turns right out of the Heads.”

Sweden’s Jonas Grander began looking for an Australian boat to charter for the race back in December: “We normally race a J109 at home. Last year we had a season when we had a lot of crew that had different things on their agenda, not prioritising racing, so I said to everybody that is on board this season we would do something extraordinary. This race has a reputation for being very extraordinary.”

Grander found chartering was too problematic, so he bought the Elliott 44 Veloce, which had placed second in the 2013 Hobart. He bought her sight unseen, renaming her Matador – and first laid eyes on the boat today, less than two weeks before the Boxing Day start.

“I thought she was race-ready but she wasn’t,” Grander says, so he has been overseeing a refitting program by remote. “They have done a good job,” he says with some relief.

Then there is Scallywag. The giant super maxi has undergone significant rig and ballasting modifications since Hong Kong based Seng Huang Lee purchased Syd Fischer’s former Ragamuffin 100 this year. “This has been a rushed six months,” S.H. says, “but we are ready.”

There have been ups and downs along the way. In July the ram on Scallywag’s canting keel blew up in the Land Rover Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, but since then she has broken the Groupama round New Caledonia monohull record in September and smashed the Hong Kong to Hainan record in November.

So now, after all this planning, all that remains is some final crew training in Australian waters, tweaking every shackle and bolt one last time, and soaking up the atmosphere of the country’s biggest sailing event.

“We are under a lot of pressure,” Rho says. “Every Korean will be looking at us. Frankly, I am not ready. We will be much better next week - I hope.

The start of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race will be broadcast live on the Seven Network throughout Australia.

By Jim Gale, CYCA Media