2004 Race Recap
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Aera, Tattersall Cup winner in 2004
Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2004
Race Program
Prior to each race Cruising Yacht Club of Australia publishes a separate official race program (with details of competing boats, the results of past races and articles about the race and its participants and other important events). The 2004 Edition is here.
Weather
The 60th anniversary race, again sponsored by Rolex, attracted 116 starters. It was to be a tough battle south in the Tasman Sea with only 59 boats completing the course. As George Snow (Brindabella) said after reaching Hobart: "Ninety eight was harder, but 36 hours of tough cold conditions really brought it home that this is a great race…one of the great races in the world."
For the smaller boats, it was up to 56 hours of pounding headwinds for some. For the first afternoon and evening, the fleet ran south before freshening northerly winds that reached 25 knots. Boosted by a fast running East Australian Current, the leaders were inside the race record. But they "hit the brick wall" of a south-westerly change before daybreak the next morning. For the next 36 to 56 hours, depending on their size, the fleet pounded to windward into seas that reached 6 -7 knots offshore on a big southerly swell as south-west to southerly winds freshened to 35-45 knots.
Unlike most southerly fronts along the Australian East Coast, which move through quickly, this one went on hour after hour, increasing steadily in intensity. Many skippers of small to medium sized boat chose to exercise prudent seamanship and seek shelter in Twofold Bay on the New South Wales South Coast. At one stage there were more 60 boats at anchor in the bay. Several resumed the race; most retired. As the maxis crossed Bass Strait, the major drama of the race unfolded with the 30-metre Skandia lost control of her canting keel.
Her crew took to the liferafts and she subsequently capsized, losing the keel and breaking the mast. Not many hours later, the other 30-metre boat, Konica Minolta retired with structural damage to the hull, leaving the newly launched 90-footer Nicorette to take line honours. Fittingly, Overall first place on corrected time under the IRC handicap system went to the British boat, Aera - the inaugural race 60 years before had also been won by a British entry, Rani.
Race reports
After each race, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia's magazine Offshore contains photo galleries, reports and articles on the race. Read on to access them.