Yacht Race of the Year!

The golden sickle moon hung tenuously in the night sky before dropping smoothly behind the mountain, leaving the inky black sky and glassy waters of the river estuary in its wake.

Peering into the darkness I stood watch and waited for the first super maxi to appear. As the waves lapped gently at the shore, my tracker app showed how close she was and I knew they were threading their way invisibly up the river, in the final leg of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race.

Four massive super maxis were out there – Comanche, Law Connect, Black Jack and Wild Oats – like a motley band of outlaws being brought in by a Wild West lawman.

First sight of them was the glint of green globes floating in the dark, when suddenly a massive black sail broke from the sky heading directly across the water towards me! Forty metres high, it loomed large, greedily snatching the air around it to billow with promise, like a circus tent In the breeze!

Tacking suddenly, it paused dramatically as her jib swung across breathless skies before… CRACK!! her sheets of sail snapped into the wind and she snarled her way upriver toward the twinkling lights of Constitution Dock.

Black on black they raced onward to the final mark and the roar of a gunshot as Comanche crossed the finish line, with the other maxis hot on her heels.

What an unforgettable climax to an annual event where sailors pit themselves against the ocean, the winds and the unpredictable weather – trusting their instinct, their teamwork and their skill as watermen, to battle it out for a trophy (worth more than mere money), and their place in the sun!