2017 SYDNEY HOBART: A RACE WITH A BITTER FINISH

A spoiled race !!!The race finished and nobody knew who had line honors, that is an euphemism for who won it on real time. Wild Oats arrived first, followed by Comanche, but a flagrant violation of the race rules by Wild Oats forcing Comanche to luff to avoid a collision while failing to keep clear, tacking too late, would mean, almost for sure, that later a penalty would have to be attributed.

Wild Oats XI crew did not recognize, at the time, any fault regarding the incident and did not perform the required two turn penalty.  If it had been the case probably it would have won the race.

Comanche after arriving filed a protest that was appreciated by an International jury that found that wild Oats XI on port had to keep clear Comanche, that Wild Oats XI failed to keep clear while tacking and did not do a two turn penalty for breaking a rule of RRS Part 2. For that they had penalised Wild Oats XI with a one hour penalty.

The decision was inevitable and surely heavier than if wild Oates had done the penalty on the spot.

A pity having a great race spoiled by this. Comanche led all the way till the entrance of the river Derwent, where he had a three mile advantage, then the wind died and the Wild Oates crew was able to take advantage of the better local knowledge and of the better performance of their boat in very light winds, arriving first. A dramatic finish.

On handicap racing the sad tale between the two main handicap systems continues, even if it seems that now the process is on the right way regarding the unification. We have two different winners on handicap on this race: according to IRC the winner was Ichi Ban, a new TP 52, according to ORCI the winner was Quest, an older TP 52. In real time Ichi Ban beat Quest by 58 minutes. The winner of the race will be the IRC winner.

One thing is for sure, this great race deserved a more professional management. They still maintain a lousy tracker, the race coverage leaves much to be desired and most of all they maintain the multihull exclusion as if they were not sailingboats and for no reason. They are accepted and race on all other classic races while they continue to be inexplicably refused here.

And that's not the only odd thing: Wild Oats can race here because of a special amendment to this particular race sailing rules but it cannot race anywhere else since the boat does not comply with the "world Sailing" rules due to the use of  an engine for powering sailing systems (winches and canting keel), meaning that it is a sailboat that has to have the engine running full time, even if not for propulsion.

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