Sydney Hobart a tough win for Commanche

"This is a hard race. I have sailed around the world two and a half times and I thought I had seen it all but this is one hard body of water" was how Comanche’s skipper Ken Read summed it up dockside after bringing his wounded supermaxi across the line for a line-honours win in the 2015 Sydney Hobart race.

It was one of the most extraordinary line-honours triumphs in the history of the Rolex Sydney Hobart.

"This is a hard race. You guys have a hard race here.

"The people who have done this race 25 times, God bless them, they are the hardest people on Earth or the dumbest people on Earth, probably a combination of the two," Read quipped.

This was a moment of supreme elation, joy and relief for Read and Comanche’s owners, Jim and Kristy Clark. Relief because Comanche could so easily not have made it to Hobart at all. It had all come so terribly unstuck on that first night of the race, when something destroyed one of their daggerboards.

"The first thing was we had to get rid of the daggerboard," Read recalls.

"It was attached by a bunch of ropes and you could hear it failing around under the boat. I was most worried about the sharp edges of the daggerboard actually puncturing up through the hull of the boat. So we desperately cut the ropes to get rid of the daggerboard. And of course when we got rid of the daggerboard by cutting the ropes we saved the hull but kind of cleaned out the rudder on the way through."

They had somehow wrecked the entire steering system inside the boat, and when they finally had a chance to inspect the damaged rudder they found it facing backwards.

"That’s when we said we’re done," Read said. "We stopped and took all the sails down. We actually started kind of drifting back towards Sydney.

"And then all of a sudden I see the tools come out and when I see the tools come out with these guys that’s usually a good sign that they have an idea. All of a sudden you hear cutters and little grinders."

Somehow they patched it all together.

"There’s three stainless threads holding the entire steering system together right now,” Read adds. Maybe they would not need to pull out after all.

"I talked to the watch captains and we all decided unanimously we’re here to finish this race."

"I did not quite know what was going on," Jim Clark said. Stuck on shore, the owner was only getting patchy news from his boat.

"First I was told they retired and then that they were racing on. Until we came alongside the boat I wasn’t fully aware of exactly what had gone on. It was my first real indication of just what had happened."

While Read’s tradies were ferreting away at the steering, Rambler swept past into the lead. It would be 13 hours before Comanche would take it back again after, bizarrely, Rambler smashed one of her daggerboards. Suddenly it was game on again.

"About half way through we put in a long port tack and chewed up Rambler," Read says. "We went from let’s just finish to, holy crap, we might win this thing."

And win it they did, in grand style.

Comanche had blitzed the field in the fresh nor-easter at the start, and, until losing her daggerboard and rudder, had continued to slowly increase her lead in the tough, southerly bash on the first night. But that was expected.

What was not expected was how, in today’s lighter winds, the big, wide supermaxi consistently built on her lead over Rambler and Ragamuffin 100.

"I have been hearing all the time that we couldn’t perform in light wind," Read said, "and I have been saying that we’re really different from last year.

"This boat is doing everything we dreamt it could do and more.

"We love this boat. It got us here safe, right?"

Meanwhile, it as back at the dock, where Comanche arrived, that one of the largest crowds in living memory had gathered. There was not a square inch to be had around the piers and wharfs surrounding Hobart where thousands cheered the American victory

Comanche’s finish was impeded by the breeze which came and went at whim as the yacht rounded the Iron Pot. At one stage she was powering at 15 knots, then down to 8.5 knots.

Her finish time of two days nine hours 58 minutes 30 seconds was outside the record of 1 day 18 hours 23 minutes 12 seconds set by Wild Oats XI in 2012.

Comanche’s highlights to this moment include:
>> First overall (Elapsed Time division).  Voiles St Barts
>> First overall elapsed, Storm Trysail Block Island Race
>> Elapsed time record, Storm Trysail Block Island Race
>> First overall handicap class and fleet, Storm Trysail Block Island Race
>> First overall elapsed, Rolex Transatlantic Race
>> 24 Hour Monohull Distance Record, 618 miles
>> First overall elapsed, Rolex Fastnet Race
>> First
overall (Elapsed Time Class), Rolex Maxi Worlds

But it did not matter. The last American to take line honours in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s race was Larry Ellison’s Sayonara, 17 years ago in the fatal 1998 race, so Comanche’s efforts was quite some achievement, even if their quest of beating Wild Oats XI was not to be.

The Oatley family and Wild Oats XI skipper, Mark Richards, were watching back home in Sydney and sent a congratulatory letter to Jim Clark.

To Jim Clark,
Yacht “Comanche”

Dear Jim,
On behalf of Bob Oatley, the Oatley family and the Wild Oats XI crew I want to congratulate you, Kristy and the entire Comanche team for taking line honours in the 71st edition of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

You met the challenge, survived the test and won in grand style.

We salute you.
Mark Richards,
Skipper, Wild Oats XI

Article by Jim Gale and Bruce Montgomery, RSHYR Media. Photo Captions & Credit: Comanche crew celebrate with co-owner Kristy Clark and skipper Ken Read - Credit Rolex/Stefano Gattini; Comanche rounding Tasman Island - Credit Rolex/Kurt Arrigo.