Before and After Christmas Day - The Big Race!
Aurora_b
Mike and Liz Downing
Fri 28 Dec 2012 12:48
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It was a relatively early start on Boxing Day to head
off to see the start of the big race here down under - the Sydney to Hobart
yacht race. It always starts at 13.00 and has been a Boxing
Day tradition here since 1945. There's normally a reasonably large
fleet of top class racing yachts and hundreds of spectator boats to see
them off. The plan had been to take one of the boats out
and see the start from the water, but there was a strong wind
forecast and the feeling was that we would see much more by going to one of
the vantage points on land (and without all the stress of trying to avoid a
collision!). And so it proved - a group of us headed out on the ferry (the
main means of transport in Sydney harbour) to Watson's Bay and walked
to South Head, the southern side of the entrance to Sydney Harbour, along with
hundreds of locals. This allowed us to see the 76 yachts coming up from the
start, going out of the harbour and turning south towards Tasmania and Hobart
(628 miles to the south). There was also a local interest as the
person we are renting our buoy from up at Pittwater was taking part on a
60ft yacht called Tusitala (registered in Samoa and with SAM 1 on the
mainsail). More by luck that judgment we actually got a couple of good pictures
of Tusitala heading out to sea. The race generally takes anywhere between 2 and
5 days depending on the size of the yacht and conditions at sea.
But before the pictures of some fantastic racing yachts,
we forgot to put on the pictures from our second 'carols in the park' event,
this time in Sydney at the Domain just before Christmas. It was amazing,
not due to the carols/Christmas songs that were sung, but due to the number of
people - over 50,000! They had to close the gates to the park as there were
too many people. Everyone had candles in red holders and seeing all these being
held up and waved after dark was stunning. It was also key for another reason -
the last performance of the original Wiggles! It helped if you knew
who the Wiggles were, which none of our party did, but the rest of the
crowd seem to and all got up and danced along. They got the biggest cheer
of night!
 The Pyrmont Bridge - a pedestrian bridge
taking you into the heart of the city. (With a Mono
rail
track going down the middle.) Sydney is a very attractive
city.
 Could it be
Christmas?!
 It's T-shirts weather some days
and fleece weather other days, depending on which way the
wind blows. The
temperature can drop (or
rise) by 10 degrees C from one day to the next. It
takes a bit of getting used
to.
 Sydney from the Woolwich ferry. The ferry
terminal is 15 minutes walk from our mooring (once
we've made the 50 yard dinghy ride to the small Woolwich marina)
and the ferry is the easiest
and quickest way to get into
the city. On the way back,
the stop before Woolwich is Greenwich!
The scenery and climate are quite
different to the UK, but
many of the names are the same.
 It's difficult not to take pictures of
it!
 Carols at the Domain - 50,000 plus waiting
hours in advance for the show to get started. And
yes,
Woolworths was the main sponsor - they're one of the big food
supermarket chains here, akin to
Tesco and Sainsburys in
the
UK.
 I think it was the
Wiggles!
 On the ferry on the way
home.
 A great skyline - day or
night.
 Shogun getting ready before the start of the
Sydney to Hobart race. They actually spent the
night before the race in Woolwich marina.
 One of the super maxis at 100ft long - Wild
Oats XI.
 Our crew at South Head, the entrance to
Sydney Harbour, waiting for the race to get underway.
Liz was taking the photo.
 And they're off! Wild Oats XI
streaking ahead, making, according to one of the reports, over
20kts.
 The fleet chase
behind.
 The great backdrop of Sydney as spectator
boats follow along the side of the fleet. The whole
harbour is closed for commercial traffic from 8am to 4pm on Boxing
Day.
 There was quite a swell coming into the
harbour and quite strong winds at times, and with all
these spectator
boats charging down the
harbour, we were all pleased that we had left the
boats
back in the
marina!
 It was a short spinnaker run to the entrance
to the harbour, but some boats decided it was too
short to bother.
 The yachts turn to head out of the harbour.
Second from the left is Tusitala.
 Tusitala (SAM 1). We didn't realise we had
taken this until looking at the photos at the
end of the day. It
was all happening too
quickly to be able to identify specific yachts, other
than the big super
maxis.
Having just checked the Internet, the 5 big boats have
already finished. Wild Oats XI crossed the line first in a record time of
just 1 day 18 hours and 23 minutes, an average of 14.8kts. The other
71 yachts are still at sea and Tusitala is currently in 34th position with
217 miles still to go. There is also a yacht called Aurora, and she's
a metre shorter than Aurora B!
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