2023 Race Recap
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Philip Turner's Alive, Tattersall Cup winner in 2023. Image: ROLEX/Kurt Arrigo
Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2023
The 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race was a ‘A Race for the Ages’; a title given to our race highlights video afterwards. The moniker is both a nod to the unusually testing and, at times, heinous conditions that 103 entrants endured over the 628nm course but also reflects the levels of global excitement generated by the extreme closeness of the racing across all divisions.
Duncan Hine skippered Philip Turner’s 66-foot Reichel/ Pugh Alive to its second Overall win in 5 years, after storming up the Derwent in pursuit of Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Champion URM Group - finishing close enough off Castro Esplanade to claim the Tattersall Cup. She now stands alongside Westward as the only other Tasmanian boat to have won the race twice.
Other IRC divisional winners included: Smuggler, Victorian entries MRV and Patriot, Mistral and Tasmania’s Kraken III. Oroton Drumfire won PHS; Pretty Woman and Ragtime Corinthian IRC and PHS respectively.
The Line Honours finish was the second closest in the history of the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. We watched in awe as Christian Beck’s LawConnect, helmed by Tony Mutter, tussled with John Winning Jr’s Andoo Comanche to win by less than a minute in the closest of match races; the lead changing five times between the 100 foot maxis in the final stretches on an almost breezeless river. The live stream of the finish was the second most watched video on YouTube in Australia and extensive media coverage reached ‘every corner’ of the globe. Two-Handed IRC and Line Honours went to Rupert Henry who with Ocean Racer Jack Boutell justified their pre-race favoritism with a resounding win in the Lombard 34 Mistral – a result which placed them 6th IRC Overall (and Division 4 winner) in a race that unquestionably suited bigger and fully-crewed boats.
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 such as the Admiral's Cup). The 2023 Edition is here.
2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart - Race Documents
Amendment 1 to the Sailing Instructions (amended)
Race Briefing and Weather Briefing
There is a compulsory race briefing 2 days before the race and a compulsory weather briefing on the morning of the start. Watch them here:
Weather
The 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race will be remembered as one of the more difficult Hobart races to forecast in the week and days leading up to the start on 26 December. The uncertainty of the race forecast was due to the high temperatures and high humidity in the weeks leading up to the race on the east coast of Australia which continued right through Christmas and up until the start day.
At 11am on 26 December a 1005Hpa low pressure was centered inland NSW and the question for the fleet was where the centre of the low would be situated as it moved east across the race course on 26 - 27 December, which would determine the conditions for the fleet on the first night and early part of the race. It was the difficult conditions on the first night that largely shaped the outcome of the race. The yachts that committed to a course well east of rhumb line including the 100 footer maxis (Andoo Commanche and Law Connect) and mini maxis (Alive, URM and Moneypenny) achieved the top 5 placings on IRC and line honours and enabled Alive to be in a position to secure the overall win.
Race reports
In recent years the navigator of the overall winner has been invited to write a report on their race, including detail on the weather they experienced. After each race, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia's magazine Offshore contains photo galleries and a report and other articles on the race. Read on to access them.
Summer 2023/24 Offshore - see pages 6 to 29
Race report - Adrienne Cahalan, Navigator, Overall winner, Alive