Sydney to Hobart veteran Peter Shipway has declared the race record will not be broken in 2023 as Andoo Comanche and LawConnect remain neck-and-neck at the head of the fleet.
The fleet was reduced to 95 boats following a night of stormy weather, with rigging issues leaving Georgia Express as the eighth boat to retire at roughly 11am on Wednesday.
The only South Australian yacht in the race, Clockwork, is still sailing. The Sydney 38 owned by Mary Ann Harvey and Andrew Lloyd, has just passed Batemans Bay and is sailing a straight line down the NSW coast.
Just under an hour earlier, LawConnect overtook reigning line honours champion Comanche in what appears a race in two to reach Constitution Dock the fastest.
Fewer than a mile separated the pair of 100ft supermaxis, which were into Bass Strait when LawConnect took the lead.
Comanche and LawConnect, the runner-up on line honours at the last three Hobarts, had been the two clear front-runners since just out of Sydney Harbour and remained in step overnight.
The two supermaxis began the trip down the NSW south coast at a decent clip but have since fallen off the pace of the race record – one day, nine hours, 15 minutes and 24 seconds, set by Comanche in 2017.
At 10:30am on the second day of racing in 2017, Comanche was 130 nautical miles further ahead of this year’s two front-runners.
“The race record is no chance,” said Shipway, who has won the Hobart twice on handicap and five times on line honours.
“They’d have to finish by quarter past ten tonight and they’re still not even halfway.
“I think we’re probably at least 24 hours, maybe 30 hours, from a finish. It could be a daylight finish tomorrow.”
Alive, the 66-footer that won on handicap in 2018, was in third place at 10:30am, leading a cluster of boats that included the race’s third supermaxi Wild Thing 100.
In-form URM Group, a contender for overall honours, suffered damage to her jib and lost her code zero spinnaker on a stormy first night at sea but remains in the race.
Hobart veteran Peter Jones, crew on Maritimo 52, said there was “as much lightning as we’d ever seen” before his boat became one of seven to retire by early Wednesday morning.
The highest profile of those was SHK Scallywag, one of four 100ft supermaxis jostling for line honours, which suffered a broken bow sprit and withdrew around 7pm on Boxing Day.
One of eight highly competitive TP52s starting the race, Maritimo was skippered by dual Hobart winner Michael Spies and boasted an experienced crew.
But she retired just south of Jervis Bay after breaking a fitting on her forestay and ripping her mainsail, with 50-footer Sticky also retiring overnight.
“We’re shattered, actually,” said Jones.
“We were trying to work a million ways around it, but at best we were going to be at 50 per cent.”
The damage came as stormy weather hit the fleet on the NSW south coast as predicted.
Popular two-hander Currawong, the equal-smallest boat in the fleet, became the sixth entrant to retire from the race just after 8am on Wednesday.
Co-skippers Kathy Veel and Bridget Canham were the first all-female two-handed entry in last year’s race and had thousands of spectators greet them on arrival in Hobart on New Years Eve.
But a repeat of the jubilant scenes was not to be as the pair reported “multiple issues” with their boat to race staff, bowing out south of Wollongong.
Fellow two-hander PacMan retired less than an hour later with runner chainplate issues, leaving the two-handed division at 15 boats after Rum Rebellion withdrew on Tuesday evening.
– AAP
