Dekadence Near the finish

One of the great things about Christmas time in Hobart is when all the ocean racing boats sail in for the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race. It is sad that these days a lot of the faster boats turn around and head back to Sydney within hours to participate in the Sydney-Coffs Harbour Race, which happens early in the new year.

If they don’t head back, then there is usually a good chance they will participate in the King of the Derwent Yacht Race held usually around the 2nd January each year.

This year I had the pleasure of watching the event from the deck of the Cartela, giving me plenty of opportunity to take some photos.

There are a selection of images I have taken of the event. Please click on the image for a larger version.

And they're off! Race Start

Racing with this many boats at the start line at one time is always fun. Cloudy skies meant good photography conditions. It didn’t take long for the maxi yacht, Loyal to move to the lead, even though she was only sailing with a storm sail up!

Rounding the windward mark for the first time

Loki however was beaten to the first mark rounding by some of the smaller yachts, who better read the shifting winds. The first mark rounding saw some serious competition.

First Squall hits the fleet

Shortly after rounding the mark, an unforecast weather front moved through, bringing with it strong winds that caught the fleet by surprise and with too much sail up. The only thing to do was to back of the sails and wait for the winds to dimish. A lot of yachts chose to retire at this point.

Doing it rough

It was a hard slog for the remaining boats to get to the bottom mark.

Chinese Gybe..Otherwise known as an "oops"

Later in the race a second front howled through and this time the yachts were on a section of the course where they had their spinnakers up. It was only a matter of time before someone came to grief.