TEA Gardens’ Steve Taylor has recently competed in the esteemed Sydney to Hobart Yacht race as the navigator on Sebastian Bohm’s TP52 ‘Smuggler’.

The 2021 race promised to be a challenging event both on and off the water.

In the midst of the pandemic all sailors had to return a negative PCR test prior to the race start, which forced a handful of boats to abandon the race prior to starting, with key crew testing positive.

Generally, those who were lucky enough to make it to the start line did so with reduced or modified crews.

The start brought a 12-15 knott SSE breeze, and the first downwind spinnaker start in over seven years.

“We managed the harbour well to exit second behind Zen, leading previous two-time Hobart winners Quest and Ichi Ban,” Steve told News Of The Area.

From there, most of the fleet had elected to sail out to sea into the Eastern Australian Current, which was running south at between 1.5-3kt, which provided a huge speed advantage.

Throughout the afternoon of the 26 December 2021, the prevailing southerly breeze built to around 20kt, and just after dark the fleet hit by a squall from SW with winds more than 35kt which drove waves to reach over 3m in height.

Combined with the sea state, this contributed to the retirement of eighteen yachts by either severely damaging sails or rigging.

Two yachts also suffered considerable hull damage and were escorted back to safety by other retired competitors, and a further two yachts retired with crew injuries, sailors breaking arms and shoulders.

“As the breeze abated in the early morning of day two, we proceeded to the first weather transition of the race, which saw the breeze swing ESE at 14-18kt.

“We had positioned ourselves relatively well for this transition, around 75 miles offshore from Bermagui, and came out around a mile behind Quest- this breeze stabilised and we were able to progress south-west over the next 24 hours to the second weather transition around 30 miles from Flinders Island,” Steve said.

A westerly wind swung slightly north and built to around 18-22kt as the four remaining TP52s dragged down the Tasmanian coast, and at sunset of day three all were at a very similar latitude off St Marys and approaching the third weather transition.

By morning, Ichi Ban and Celestial had managed to turn their four mile lead over Smuggler into 30 miles, and 50 miles over Quest.

Ichi Ban and Celestial continued their fight right to the finish, where Celestial produced a fantastic result to record a finishing time faster than Ichi Ban to put them in first overall, however approaching Constitution Dock they were informed of Ichi Ban’s intention to protest them over a breach of the racing rules – namely failure to maintain a listening watch on VHF channel 16 for the duration of their race.

Neither the Race Committee nor Ichi Ban could reach Celestial for a period of 90 minutes, at which time Ichi Ban had launched a red parachute flare at the request of the Race Committee to alert Celestial.

It was at this time Celestial contacted Ichi Ban on VHF Channel 16 and informed them of the incidental activation and guaranteed wellbeing of all crew.

After an International Jury heard the protest and deliberated on the case well into the night, it was noted that Celestial was to receive a 40-minute penalty in lieu of disqualification for breaching rules which inconvenienced AMSA, the Race Committee and other competitors. Ichi Ban was to receive a 3-minute redress for their assistance at the time.

This protest decided the race outcome, with Ichi Ban receiving their third overall Sydney-Hobart win and claiming the Tattersall Cup.

Smuggler finished sixth overall, and second in division one behind Celestial.

Congratulations to Steve and the crew of Smuggler for an eventful and challenging race, resulting in great results.

 

By Tara CAMPBELL