Champagne corks often pop and loud, boisterous cheers are usually heard around Constitution Dock when the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race line honors winner finishes in the Tasmanian state capital.
There were no such celebrations this year when the defending champions on board LawConnect won the race in the early hours of yesterday morning, as it came about 24 hours after two sailors died on separate boats in sail boom accidents two hours apart on a storm-ravaged first night of the race.
LawConnect, a 100-foot super maxi skippered by Australian tech millionaire Christian Beck, sailed up the River Derwent at just after 2:30am. It had an elapsed time of 1 day, 13 hours, 35 minutes, 13 seconds, for the 628-nautical mile (1,163km) race that began on Thursday in Sydney Harbour.
Photo: AFP / Salty Dingo / Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race
Celestial finished second, about two-and-a-half hours behind LawConnect, while Wild Thing was third, about 25 minutes behind Celestial.
Of the 104 starters, 29 had retired at sea or in port.
LawConnect crew member Tony Mutter said that celebrations would be held privately out of respect of the two sailors who died.
Photo: AP
He said crew members were informed of the deaths on the morning of day two after a busy night battling the same stormy seas that caused the fatal incidents.
“I didn’t actually hear it on the first night. I heard it in the early hours of the next morning,” Mutter told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio. “We were pretty busy. We were 100 percent focused on the race. Our navigator knew, and he had to just pick the right moment to let us know.”
Mutter said that his crew became “more somber” after being told about the deaths — “we were absolutely surprised and just felt for the other competitors.”
On Friday, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in Sydney, which administers the yacht race, said that one sailor each on entrants Flying Fish Arctos and Bowline were killed after being struck by booms, a large horizontal pole at the bottom of the sail.
The two were identified as Roy Quaden, 55, from Western Australia state, a crew member on Flying Fish Arctos, and 65-year-old Nick Smith of South Australia, who was on Bowline.
New South Wales police said that both yachts had been seized for evidence for a likely coroner’s inquest.
The Cruising Yacht Club said it would hold its own investigation.
There have been 13 fatalities in the 79-year history of the race, with four of those deaths resulting from heart attacks.
The first all-Filipino crew of 15 sailors was entered in this year’s race, but was among the retirements because of the weather.
With veteran sailor Ernesto Echauz at the helm, Centennial 7 was one of six international entrants and included sailors from the Philippines’ national team and the country’s navy.
Grant Wharington, the Australian skipper of third-place Wild Thing and a veteran around-the-world sailor, described the Hobart race as “testing and boat breaking.”
“There’s some tragic things that have happened in the race this year,” Wharington said. “It makes you second-guess whether you should be doing it for yourself, for your own health, for your well-being and for your family.
“At the end of the day, we challenge our own personalities and our bodies,” he said. “We go and do these crazy things in life, and this is one of them, and we love it. I’ve done it 31 times. It holds great memories for me.”
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