Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race 2001

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Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race 2001
(Or how to survive, thrive and actually finish a notorious ocean race)
By Mark Jenkinson

Editor’s Note: Mark Jenkinson is mechanical engineer who has logged many hours on North Sea oil rigs and sailed in three Sydney-Hobart races (finished one).

He'll soon be moving Mr. Moustache (a tricked out Sparkman and Stevens 40') from Trinidad to the Society Islands, and eventually to his home and business in Adelaide, Australia. Mark is the CEO of AEM Cores, specializing in power distribution transformer core development.

There’s been many a beer-soaked debate over the race tactics for the Australian Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. "Turn south at Sydney Heads and keep the dirt on the right" seems to be the accepted approach. This blasé attitude to ocean racing tends to soften the impact from the notorious Bass Strait breakers.

The 2001 Sydney – Hobart saw a fleet of over 70 starters which is considered small for such an important race in the Southern Hemisphere. There’s a certain prestige and intrigue to the Hobart which draws boats from around the world. It’s not particularly long, there’s very few navigational hazards, the prevailing winds and currents are well known and the boats are familiar as they race consistently throughout the annual circuit on the east coast. What makes the Hobart race sparkle, other than the glamour start in Sydney Harbor, is the unpredictable storm cells and vicious wave patterns of Bass Strait, the body of water between Australia and Tasmania. Although only three days long, it has been labeled as one of the toughest and most grueling yacht races in the world. Seasoned skippers only count the Hobart race ‘completions’, those started but never finish just don’t make the record. Although this was my third attempt to get to Hobart, having competed in both the ’98 and 2000 events, this was to be my first success.

Rager is a 56 ft Elliot design, skippered and raced by Gary Shanks who has a head for windward steering and a ‘go hard’ race attitude. This years lead up to the race was an interesting experience considering the recent history of the vessel. An unfortunate accident with the small island of Australia resulted in a new deck, new bulb, new mast and a change of crew. We had to re-learn all there was to know about the new hull and rig in only 8 months. This is a wooden boat, originally created as the plug for another glass hull, but later converted to a race boat. She’s been glassed over but still retains the flexibility, durability and down right grunt of a medium displacement racing hull, which has seen some heavy weather and survived. Our race record is quite respectable with consistent results in the local point scoring events and offshore circuits. We’ve recorded a top speed of 30.4 knots flying down hill and the transom rooster-tail starts up at anything over 20 knots. Crew position is vital on this sled and we need to be careful when flying the big bags to distribute the weight so as to keep the bow out of the blue. It’s the first boat I’ve been asked to fit a hand brake to, at over twenty knots the prop unfolds and attempts to crank the donk. The sound of a Yanmar dieseling over down below sends me scuttling for the shaft lock, not a welcome sound as we’re launching off the back of Bass Strait breakers.

We carry a plethora of canvas, over two dozen to choose from when ocean racing. Our heads’ls start with a very light air drifter not used above 7 knots, then down through the gears of : Light #1, Heavy #1, Reacher, Jib Top, Light #2, Heavy #2, 3, 4, 5, staysail, and finally storm jibs. We use two luff tracks in the forestay profile with multiple tack and trace lines to allow us to rig the next likely sail whilst underway. It’s a fractional rig with swept back spreaders so we don’t have the hassle of runners, but we are conscious of the spar loading at all times. The main is full battened with slight to moderate roach and 4 reef points. As with all racing, speed of sail change is critical so long as it can be done safely and without error. We can slab a reef in less than 20 seconds from call to sheet-on without anyone losing a finger.

Our spinnakers include the standard mast head and hounds rigged, high shouldered bags hung from a pole. Nothing special here other than the correct call for cloth weight needs to be made early. What we have been experimenting with this year is the use of asymmetrical kites flown from the bowsprit on a retrievable tack line. These kites are easier to bag and deploy, easier to trim and much easier to tack. We’ve found that boat speed on downwind (apparent) wind angles are comparable to a conventional spinnaker without the hassle and complication of the pole and dip pole gybe manoeuvres. These kites require some extra skill in set and trim, plus the drop can be tricky if you’re slow getting the foot in (we usually letter box over the boom to snuff the chute), yet we found the flexibility and reduced man power requirement made the effort worthwhile.

In a break from my traditional job of cockpit gorilla, I find myself groomed for the job of mastman. Height and horsepower helps in this capacity, we need to hoist 4500 sq ft of sail in less than 6 seconds. Our crew totaled 17, two watches of 6 each, with five floaters : skipper, bowman, navigator, cook and the sponsors cameraman. Three hours on, three off, which seems to suit a race crew better than a standby watch. In previous sea trials we’ve found the simple 3-3 means everyone stays in race mode, there is not enough time to change out of wet gear and you never loose the race momentum. "Go hard, or go home" was the motto of this race and we had a determined bunch onboard to see it through. We floated the bowman, but had a total of five people ready to work the foredeck if required. One bowman means you have consistency throughout the race, foul ups and entanglements are minimised and the sail sets are the same every time. Yet it relies totally on having a high energy person on the stem, one who is keyed into the race plan but who can shut down and snatch sleep at every possible opportunity.

Starts are never the same on Sydney Harbour. There are literally thousands of spectator craft, fickle winds, local eddies and choppy water. Although the fleet density was less this year we still had over seventy yachts cramming themselves towards the pin end of the line. I fail to see the importance of 1-2 seconds advantage in a three day race, yet the big guns get out there and push all the same. The real trick is to be at the correct end of the line and to stick with it as you push for free air. All too often the winds will back at the last moment leaving the fleet hung on one end of the line with no where to go. We were lucky and managed to keep our heads clear for most of the run down the harbour. Calling ‘starboard’ on Nicorette has to be done once in your life, why not the 2001 Hobart?

About half way down the harbour we were able to tack over to clear air and head for blue water. We were in the top third going through Sydney Heads before we turned right for Tasmania. The weather was very difficult to predict on account of the bush fire’s raging to the south and west of Sydney. Christmas Day is always a nervous time for our fire fighters and this was no exception. Over the next two weeks they would do battle with some of the most severe bush fire’s to hit the east coast culminating in the loss of tens of thousands of square kilometers to the red peril. What it means to the selfish yottie is an obscured horizon filled with acrid black smoke and local winds which cancels out any prevailing winds and renders the weather forecast useless. This was the case for the first 80nm down the east coast, so we head out into the Tasman for fresh breeze.

Ask any yottie where the wind is blowing from and they will say ‘on the nose’. So it was for the first 48 hours of this race. Predictably we hammered into rough seas and stormy conditions for two days. A wind over current situation made the sea state uncomfortable with steep waves and heavy slamming. As reported on the news a water spout was spotted not more than 2-3nm off our port bow. With nary a glance at our "Standard Operating Procedures in the Event of a Water Spout"…we ran away. Bear off and go somewhere else seemed like the logical thing to do at the time, since the water spout is really only a symptom of the disease. The real problem lay in the cigar shaped ‘roll cloud’ which stretched from horizon to horizon and heralded 70 knot winds and ferocious waves as reported by the lead boats.

As with all crew there will be one or two who claim to be hardened seamen but who spend the first few days laughing at their lunch. Our watch was reduced to 5 able bodied which means there is one extra serve of nose bag nosh to go around. The ensuing scrabble for salt water soaked hot dogs tends to send others green, which only adds to the mêlée. The point here is it’s important to recharge and refuel at regular intervals beginning as soon as possible after the start. The expected tough conditions will make extreme physical demands on the crew and they need to be well fed and watered. Having an inner ear canal carved from a block of wood I don’t seem to suffer the sickness of motion and hence tend to help myself to other people’s food, especially in the first 12-24 hrs of a race. The soft guts soon find their legs so you need to revert to more subtle and surreptitious techniques in the never ending quest for stolen tucker. There’s no doubt that a meal stolen using stealth and subterfuge tastes much better than one handed to you on a plate. Such is life on the cold, wet and windy rail in the race south.

I have never been in such a noisy boat. The keel is well forward and the hull is really a sled with wide flat areas to slam into waves. Sitting aft you can see the boat flex and twist off the tops, followed by 1-2 seconds of near weightlessness and an eerie silence as we head out the back of one wave and across the air gap to the next. With a bang, crash and shaking of the rig, we cannon into the next hurdle and throw everyone out of the bunks. I’m reminded this is a wooden boat as the bow bulkheads skew and twist several degrees either way as she sheds water off the foredeck. Some folk would be concerned, but this is not steel nor glass, this is the magic of a wooden boat. I still spent time checking the keel bolts and shroud plates, plus we’d pull the floor boards and look for water ingress. It pays to always be looking for problems and check all the bilges and pump outs are working.

We sleep on the high side at all times, in lee cloth bunks or on sails strewn over the cabin floor. Sounds comfortable until you have the next watch stepping on your chest as they tumble down the hatch. Or when your cozy dreams are interrupted by a cold, wet spinnaker being dragged over your face as they re-pack. We were very careful to wipe all the interior surfaces with chamois cloth to remove the condensed moisture, sweat and dampness. This is important for crew moral and hygiene. A hot wet environment is actually worse than a cold dry one when considering sea sickness, crew comfort and safety. We have little to no ventilation down below when battened down for racing, and with as many as 12 blokes down there in bulky survival gear it can get awfully hot, wet and uncomfortable.

Day three was the best of the lot with a reach down the east coast of Tasmania. We had a ding dong battle with Aspect and Starlight Express as we barreled down the coast in following conditions. This gave the crew a chance to dry out and actually enjoy themselves. By playing the angles we managed to overtake and lose Aspect although they eventually beat us on handicap. Boat speed and race line were the order of the day with concentration placed on reading the weather and tactics. We’d peel spinnakers as the merest hint of a wind change, all the while scouting for other boats and plotting the run into Storm Bay. It’s in these following conditions that ‘Rager’ really sits up and barks. We’d be averaging 12-13 knots in 14-15 knots of breeze and we’d make a change to crew placement, sail plan and trim or helm with the aim to squeeze another 0.1 knot of boat speed. Eventually this pays off and we round up into Storm Bay with 20-25 knots over the deck and a clear run to the line.

Not quite. About a third of the way across we hit a dead patch. The wind dies to less than a knot, in fact we start to play the katabatic eddies flowing down off the hills surrounding the bay. Three times we’d sail away from the finish line in an attempt to ride these gully winds. Three times we’d edge back out into the bay with barely enough boat speed for rudder authority, it was on the last occasion that we struck out. In a matter of seconds the light air sails were snapping and crackling in the grip of a 47 knot squall. The boat is reefed over with the gunwales underwater, we’re going sideways with way too much sail up and no chance to get it down as the wind howls through the rigging. It took eight guys on the foredeck to haul in the light air reacher, luckily no one was seriously injured or sails damaged. Quickly we rigged the storm jib and began to nod into the gale. We were able to slab the first reef in the main, but the wind strength was way too high to loose the weight off the rail for a second. We had to basically idle into the squall and wait for it to pass. The contrast from holding a cigarette aloft to check the drift of the wind to scrabbling up a steep deck and wrestling with an angry sail remains quite vivid in my mind.

We came a very respectable 10^th over the line (discounting the Volvo’s), and third in class after leading the class all the way south. We managed to stay focused on race pace and rhumb line, our plot very nearly overlays that of ‘Nicorette’ apart from one little jaunt away from heavy weather. The crew performed very well and maintained a high energy, professional outlook. The boat survived the beating with very little complaints, minimal breakages and in my mind a sound and respectable performance.

After two prior attempts to complete this race, I finally fulfilled a determination of crossing the finish line in Hobart. We were welcomed by pleasure craft and official launches whilst on the water and by a resounding cheer dockside. The race was cold, wet, rough and hard going, but that’s what we came prepared for and we’d expect nothing less from the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

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