Eighty-four
year-old Syd
Fischer, a
legend in ocean
racing history,
has earned
overall victory
in ORCi scoring
in the 2011
Rolex Sydney
Hobart Yacht
Race in a field
of 38 ORCi
teams. This is
Fischer’s 46th
offshore season
with his latest
Ragamuffin, a
Farr-designed
TP52 originally
from San Diego.
He has completed
42 Hobart races,
won overall once
earlier in 1992
and was
runner-up last
year, and took
line honors
twice with his
German
Frers-designed
maxi Ragamuffin,
in 1988 and
1990.
But victory did not come easy, as Chris Bull’s runner-up Cookson 50 Jazz was leading for most of the race.
“I’d say this was an average one for conditions,” said Bull of this year’s race. “It had quite a lot of tough upwind, which is what you’d expect of this race and we like that. It enabled us in the first two thirds of the race to pull away from the main rivals of our size and that was better than expected. We had 25-35 knots and we didn’t think that would continue as long.”
The difficult patch for Jazz was subsequently off the east coast of Tasmania where it was all too possible to get caught in a wind hole and crews had to rely on the progress of the boats ahead of them to negotiate a way through. One third of the way down the Tasman coast, Bull admitted they did stop for just over an hour.
In
the light
conditions, the
TP52s got away
from her and it
was only
rounding Tasman
Light and
entering Storm
Bay that Jazz
was able to not
only reel them
in, but to put
distance on
them.
Unfortunately,
just when it
seemed that they
had it in the
bag, it went
very light
coming up the
Derwent River.
This allowed
Ragamuffin to
close in from
astern and
ultimately to
beat them by
only 11 minutes
in corrected
time. “So it
happened again,”
said Bull with a
sigh, having on
two previous
occasions
finished second
in the southern
hemisphere’s
most prestigious
yacht race.
The win for Fischer adds to his numerous recent titles, including being crowned the CYCA’s Blue Water Champion (2007-2008), the ninth time he had won this coveted title and finished third in the 2009-2010 Blue Water Pointscore. Fischer also placed third in the 2010/2011 Blue Water Pointscore and won the Cape Byron Series (for those yachts holding an ORCi rating certificate).
Division 2 winner was Darryl Hodgkinson’s Beneteau First 45 Victoire, who placed 8th overall, defeating runner-up Paul Clitheroe's Beneteau 45 Balance by 45 minutes in corrected time. The Division 3 winner was Roger Hickman’s Farr 43 Wild Rose, who placed an impressive 5th overall in a race dominated by the larger and faster yachts, and defeated runner-up Robbo Robertson's Beneteau First 40 Lunchtime Legend by 32 minutes in corrected time.
Photos: Rolex / Daniel Forster