Rolex Sydney Hobart / LDV Comanche awarded line honours after protest : "I think it’s entirely fair"

LDV Comanche has been awarded Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race line honours after its protest against Wild Oats XI was heard by the international jury. Like Wild Oats XI, LDV Comanche finished inside last year’s record time, so the new record is one day 9 hours 15 minutes 24 seconds. She finished 26 minutes behind Wild Oats XI, but the latter’s one hour penalty means Comanche takes line honours by 34 minutes from Wild Oats XI.

Credit : C.Borlenghi

Wild Oats XI first across the line of the Rolex Sydney Hobart

Mark Richards has steered the Oatley family’s Wild Oats XI to her ninth Rolex Sydney Hobart line honours victory after a protracted battle with Jim Cooney’s LDV Comanche on Tasmania’s River Derwent this evening, reclaiming the race record Anthony Bell’s Perpetual LOYAL took from her last year.

Credit : ROLEX/Carlo Borlenghi

Day 1 of the 2017 Rolex Sydney Hobart, and they're off

Black Jack, the light weather flyer of the four 100 foot super maxis racing for line honours in the 2017 Rolex Sydney Hobart took full advantage of the light, easterly conditions on Sydney Harbour this afternoon to lead her contemporaries out of the Heads.

Crédit : ROLEX/Carlo Borlenghi

Rolex Sydney Hobart / Giacomo, ex Groupama 4 won the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race

“It kind of feels like it’s a reward for a long journey – very satisfying – although the enormity of it we haven’t been able to comprehend,” New Zealander Jim Delegat said today on being told Giacomo was the overall winner of the 2016 Rolex Sydney Hobart.

The enormity of winning the race, following the shock of finishing second over the line and one of three boats inside Wild Oats XI’s 2012 record, beating two supermaxis, not to mention the rest, was a little overwhelming. Both his sons Nikolas (20) and James (18) sailing his first Hobart, added to the immensity of the occasion.

Perpetual LOYAL has set a new race record of 1 day, 13 h, 31 min, 20 sec at the Rolex Sydney Hobart

Arriving in Hobart at 02:31.20 on Wednesday 28 December, Anthony Bell’s 100-ft Maxi Perpetual LOYAL has set a new race record of 1 day, 13 hours, 31 minutes, 20 seconds at the Rolex Sydney Hobart and in the process secured line honours in the 72nd edition of the famous offshore race.

Crédit : Rolex Sydney Hobart

Rolex Sydney Hobart / Ragamuffin slips past to claim second

As dawn broke, Syd Fisher’s Ragamuffin 100 trailed the American speedster Rambler 88, with both less than ten nautical miles to race up the Derwent River to the finish line in Hobart.

American victory as Comanche takes line honours in Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race

When Comanche crossed the finish line of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race at Castray Esplanade in Hobart, Tasmania, at 9:58:30 hours tonight, history was created, because Kristy Clark became the first female owner to take line honours in the blue water classic.

Crédit : K Arrigo 

Regatta / Rolex Sydney Hoart, and they're off ! Wild Oats XI out

Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the shores of Sydney Harbour to send off an impressive fleet of 108 yachts as they commenced the 71st edition of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

Credit : Rolex / Kurt Arrigo

It is already proving to be a tight battle among the yachts as they race down the New South Wales coast into the “southerly buster” gale force winds this evening.

VO70 / Giovani Soldini (Maserati) : "The start went well" to Rolex Sydney Hobart - Video

A hooter blast from the Australian Cruising Yacht Boat marked the start at exactly 13.00 local time (2.00 GMT) of the 71st Rolex Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race. The 108 boats taking part lined out at three start lines on a cloudy day and in 15-knot east, nor-easterly winds.

Rolex Sydney Hobart / All prepared for 'the great race', Jimmy Spithill : "This race is iconic in Australia"

The 628 nautical mile Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is the most challenging offshore race in the world and is affectionately known among the sailing fraternity as ‘The Great Race’. With the current forecasted weather conditions, the 2015 edition promises to keep the myth intact and deliver one of the most challenging editions of the race in history.

By: Rolex / Carlo Borlenghi

Regatta / Rolex Sydney Hobart approching

The fleet of 110 international yachts is in the final stage of preparations for the 71st edition of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, which will start on Saturday, 26 December in Sydney Harbour. Teams from 28 nations are gathering at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia and the Race Village in the lead up to this iconic race, one of the highlights of the Australian sporting and social calendar.

Crédit : Rolex - C Borlenghi

#RSHYR / Wild Rose has been confirmed as the overall corrected time winner of the 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart

Completing the legendary 628 nautical mile Rolex Sydney Hobart race course in 3 days, 7 hours, 4 minutes and 43 seconds, Roger Hickman’s Farr 43 Wild Rose arrived in Hobart on Monday evening, finishing with a corrected time that proved insurmountable for the yachts drifting through an abating breeze to Hobart.

#RSHYR / Wild Oats XI has claimed a historic eighth line honours win at Sydney Hobart

In what skipper Mark Richards described as the crew’s most hard-fought line honours triumph, Wild Oats XI held off the impressive challenge posed by Comanche, the newly-launched entry from the United States.

Credit : D Forster / Rolex

Sydney Hobart / Wild Oats XI lay 38 miles ahead of Comanche, Perpetual Loyal forced to abandon

The chase for line honours at the 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is intensifying with the leading boats approaching the halfway mark of the 628-nm race.

Credit : D Forster / Rolex Sydney Hobart

Video / Let's go to the 70th Rolex Sydney Hobart ! (Plan)

The magnitude of this 70th edition is reflected in the size of the international fleet: the forecast 117 race entrants, comprising yachts from seven different countries, represents the most sizeable Rolex Sydney Hobart depart since 1994.

Regatta / Oldies return for Rolex Sydney Hobart

When the cannon fires sending the 118 entries on their way in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s 70th Sydney Hobart Yacht Race on December 26, two yachts will stand out, because they first competed back in the early days of the race.

By Southern Myth - Photo courtesy of owner

There is plenty of nostalgia to this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart, abetted by Southern Myth and Landfall, who sailed the race in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

#RSHYR / Victoire clinches as Overall Winner of the 2103 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race

Day 5 and the remaining boats racing in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race had a slight respite from prevailing weather conditions as the southwesterly moderated to 20 - 25 knots over night into this morning (December 30). Unfortunately for Roger Hickman’s Wild Rose, any chance of upsetting Victoire as overall handicap leader went by the boards with the diminishing breeze - at 4am AEDT when the boat needed to finish, it still had 35 miles to go.

Credit : Rolex/D.Forster

#RSHYR / Wild Oats XI makes it seven Rolex Sydney Hobart line honours victories : "It was a very difficult race"

Mark Richards skippered Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI to her seventh line honours victory in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race at 19.07.27hrs AEDT this evening, and in doing so, equalled the seven line honours record set by the yacht first known as Morna, which took honours from 1946 to 1948 and then as Kurrewa IV in 1954, ’56, ’57 and ’60.

Credit : Rolex / C.Borlenghi

More pics

Sydney - Hobart, the calm before

Twenty-four hours after the Rolex Sydney Hobart fleet raced out of Sydney Harbour the pace slowed up as the lead boats picked their way down the southeast coast of Australia. Overnight, Anthony Bell’s Perpetual Loyal made the strategic move to head further offshore than her main rival, Bob Oatley’s six-time line honours winner, Wild Oats XI. Loyal’s strategy worked as they eked out a gain of close to 14 nautical miles, surprising given pre-race the boat was touted as favouring heavier airs.

Credit : Rolex/D.Foster

Wild Oats XI sets a new Rolex Sydney Hobart record ! [#RSHYR]

On the morning of 28 December 2012, Wild Oats XI once again stamped her name in the Rolex Sydney Hobart history books. From the moment the start gun fired on Boxing Day the silver wraith seemed intent on condemning her rivals for line honours to the position of also-rans. Wild Oats XI’s finish time of 1 day 18 hours 23 minutes and 12 seconds sliced 16 minutes 58 seconds off her own record. Another commanding performance in a race she has begun to treat as her own.

Credit : Rolex/C.Borlenghi