A reflection from the docks of the Sydney Hobart 2024

The 2024 edition of the Rolex Sydney Hobart will leave a deep furrow in the memory of the international sailing community and especially in that of the sailors who took part. Those who participate in offshore regattas, and particularly tough ones like the Hobart, know that the most hidden and almost unpronounceable fear is that of an accident that could take away a fellow sailor or one’s own life. This is a hidden thought that perhaps many do not admit, but it lurks in the heads of many and serves to keep the level of attention and perception of danger high. As we have written, sailing at times, in some of its challenges, comes very close to the idea of extreme sports, such as high mountain climbing or other limit challenges that there are in the world of sports.

Lamberto Cesari, one of Il Giornale della Vela’s columnists, was in Sydney at the start of the race, to support as shore team the preparation of the Mumm 36 Georgia Express (also on board Italians Federico and Lorenzo Riches and Alessandro Schioppetto), one of the 104 boats in the race, among those that later failed to complete the course. Lamberto wrote these lines, which are a reflection on what this 2024 of sailing has been about, and what this simultaneously terrible and fascinating experience of the Sydney Hobart has been about.

2024, a sailing year we will long remember

We will remember for a long time this second half of 2024, when all the sailing calendars aligned, offering us all the high-level events that our sport can offer. First it was the turn of racing between the buoys, with the Olympics and the America’s Cup, then with the arrival of autumn and the cold season the sailing public began to confront the offshore: we are accompanying (as usual metaphorically, from the screens of our phones) the Vendeé fleet across the great South, after a mad descent of the Atlantic at averages we did not even think possible until last year. Despite the level of performance achieved by the new generation of IMOCAs, the appeal and involvement of this regatta for the public remains in the adventure and the relationship with risk. Thinking about how these 40 men and women test themselves in the roughest seas on the planet in a challenge between human beings, nature and technology. That risk that for normal people is perceived as crazy, for those who sail is the sum total of preparation, training, and calculated pursuit of the limit, and probably of themselves as well.

We know that any sailing at sea is not without risk, especially in the Ocean and especially when chasing a record or a finish line: how far passion can go and what the price to pay for this quest is explained to us with infinite sweetness by Tommaso Romanelli in No More Trouble. He retraced the life and passion of his engineer sailor father who was lost at sea on April 4, 1998 off the coast of Ireland on the tail end of a storm when his son, later a filmmaker, was four years old. It was his words on stage after the film’s premiere that made sense of it all: “I realized that for such a passion you can also die.” It should never happen, but it did, and this film helped him and us in processing such an event.

Nine months later that night, on the other side of the world, the greatest tragedy in modern sailing unfolded: the Sydney Hobart fleet that left on December 26, 1998 encountered a frightening depression in Bass Strait, six sailors lost their lives, five boats sank, seven were abandoned, and 55 sailors were rescued by other boats or helicopters. As in the past, this was a turning point in safety protocols-a good part of the measures we take today come from analyzing that tragedy. What links those events are not only two very strong depressions, but also two stretches of shallow water that generated frightening waves.

The Sydney Hobart still remains the great classic of offshore racing, the toughest, most feared and respected. One only has to read the regatta notice, or attend the skipper meeting, to realize that 1998 is still on everyone’s mind and safety the only element of focus by the organizing committee. Participating boats must have completed in the previous six months a race of at least 150 miles among those selected or a 150-mile ocean passage pre-approved by the race committee; at least half of the crew must have taken survival courses, at least half must have done a category 1 race, at least two members must be doctors or have first aid certifications; during the race the committee calls each boat twice a day and they must respond by reporting position and situation on board within an hour…and so on.

The Hobart 2024

The tension on the docks in the days leading up to departure was palpable. Those unloading materials from the boat, those loading provisions, those making final repairs, those checking equipment and gear. It strikes an all-Australian attitude to boat care, more basic and less precise than what we are used to in Europe, but no less effective. Unlike 26 years ago, it was well known that the conditions on the first night would be tough, with northerly winds up to 40 knots on a mad descent into Bass Strait, and cross seas that would make the risk of strafing particularly high. The fast boats would enter Bass with the wind from the north that would then turn west with the second front, while for the smaller boats the second front would mean a 180-degree jump going from stern to windward and creating a wave from two opposite directions-a real washing machine for the light boats.

That first unfortunate night there were three serious accidents: two ended tragically with the death of two sailors and one miracle, with a boy who fell into the water at night recovered after 45 minutes thanks to the personal tracking device. All three probably–police are still ascertaining the dynamics of the two deaths–for the same reason: lots of wind, cross seas, a violent riptide, and a person positioned in the wrong place. In the case of the man overboard on the Cookson 50 Porco Rosso, we know that he was tied up and had to untie himself in order not to drown, but by the time he surfaced the boat was already dozens of meters away. Nature, once again, teaches us who is the strongest and that she should be respected. At the same time, those who set out for the Sydney Hobart are aware of the risks and take responsibility for them, and the skipper always has “the right and the obligation to decide whether it is safe to continue” as the organization’s leaders have repeatedly said “We are not risk adverse, we are risk aware.” By that strange thread of fate, as the Hobart fleet sailed southward braving the elements, a few miles to the west a blue IMOCA with a makeshift rig reached port in Melbourne. It was Pip Hare, who taught us how embarking on round-the-world sailing requires being responsible for oneself, knowing how to handle even the most complex eventualities. In these days of balance sheets, the lesson to be learned is that the choice to embark on a voyage on the high seas cannot be separated from knowledge and trust in the vessel and crew with whom one shares this experience. Moreover, nowadays we have the tools to educate and inform ourselves, and as much as we are aware that taking to the sea entails risks, small or large depending on our experience and the navigation we are about to undertake, the spirit of adventure and the thirst for knowledge of the unknown (whether it be a bay, an island, or a race) will continue to drive us to cast off our moorings. “‘O friars,’ I said, ‘who by a hundred thousand perils have come to the west, to this so tiny eve of our senses that is of the remainder do not deny the experience, back of the sun, of the world without people. Consider your seed: ye were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.””

by Lamberto Cesari

Edited by Mauro Giuffrè