Sydney Hobart winning LawConnect

Three minute video of the very final stages of the 2023 Line Honours win in the Sydney Hobart Race

rolexsydneyhobart.com/tracker

For those unfamiliar with the tracker it shows the leading boats for line honours in the default view. You can pull up selected boats in the pull down menus.

 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race start © Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race

It also shows the position of the race record holder (LDV Comanche) at the same stage of the race in 2017 – not to be confused with the current entry Andoo Comanche.

To bring up the data on the individual boats you need to click on the boat icon (not just the name) – you should see the current speed and distance to the finish. Note this is a course directly to the finish, not the fastest course to the finish. The boat is located on a chart of the current fleet location. The solid line is the direct course to finish.

The current position of the boat in its respective fleets is also shown.

 LawConnect was in second place for just about all of the trip up the River Derwent, and did not attract much of the spectator fleet. She went from 3nm astern to 30m in front. What an effort! © Tony Lathouras

In the peloton of the fleet it can be very tricky to bring up a boat, and you need to set the screen to as large a scale as possible to make this easier. For more data on each boat click on the boat names to the right side of the tracker which shows amongst other data Speed over the Ground (SoG) and Course over the Ground (CoG).

For those who missed it, line honours was taken by LawConnect, the former Speedboat – by Juan K, and built by the Cookson yard in New Zealand. They won a tense battle all the way up the Derwent River with the race record holder from 2017, now andoo Comanche. The race is now on for overall honours – with five boats in contention, including the two supermaxis, which have just finished. The others are URM, Alive and Moneypenny.

It is not known if LawConnect will proceed with a redress claim, to get compensation for time lost during an incident when they stopped racing to stand by another competitor. If that claim proceeds and is successful Law Connect could take the double in what looks like being a “Big Boat” race.

by Richard Gladwell