It was a 24-hour wait in Hobart to see if the 45th boat across the line, Wild Rose would snatch a last minute win. But at last Victoire skipper Darryl Hodgkinson has his hands on the Tattersall’s Cup.

Victoire

Rolex Sydney-Hobart 2013 overall winner Victoire. Photo by: Rolex / Daniel Forster.



Line honours went to Wild Oats XI in a time of two days, six hours and seven minutes, over three hours ahead of second placed boat Perpetual Loyal. Wild Oats XI  has now equalled the record of Morna/Kurrewa IV taking line honours in Hobart seven times. Despite heavy weather on day three, there have only been 10 retirements out of the starting fleet of 94 boats.

Wild Oats XI

Rolex Sydney Hobart line honours went to Wild Oats XI for a record-equalling seventh time. Photo by Rolex / Carlo Borlenghi.



Victoire skipper Darryl Hodgkinson was full of praise for his crew: “I choose very good people, whom I trust. We don’t fly in a lot of expensive people. We sail weekends, Friday nights together. We started off in 2007 on Sydney 38s, then moved up to a 45-footer - and now this,” he said of the canting keeled Cookson 50, formerly known as Jazz.

“The black boat Varuna (Jen’s Kellinghusen’s Ker 51 from Germany) was the one we watched most closely, because she’s fast, so we knew if we could keep matching her we knew we were doing okay in the fleet.”

By ocean racing standards, these days Hodgkinson and his mates have done it all on a very modest budget. “We’re the least funded in this group. In IRC you’ve got $5 million boats that you’re racing against, so, yes, it does give you a special boost to be able to compete against better financed boats.

“We race within our means, but I never do anything that would compromise the boat. Some think ‘It’s probably alright, we’ll repair that next year’, but we don’t do that. When you come to a Hobart you don’t do that, you want it perfect.

Nikata

Nikata cresting the big seas on morning of Day 4. Photo Rolex / Carlo Borlenghi.



If there was a weakness in Victoire’s preparation for the Hobart it was for heavy weather. They took her to races up and down the coast searching for big winds to test themselves and the new boat, and found none. Perhaps that accounts for the spectacular Chinese gybe they performed about 100 miles into the race.

“Our one dumb decision was not to take the big ‘chute down earlier. We talked about it for two or three hours,” he said. But the boat was flying, Hodginson and his crew were at the back of the boat, perched on the rail, having a ball, high above the rushing water, right up to the moment the spinnaker took control and the boat broached beneath the big sail.

Suddenly, Hodgkinson wasn’t above the water, he was in it as the windward rail became the leeward rail. “Once the boat tipped over and we had the Chinese the decision was made,” he joked.

“Fortunately we had some smart people who knew what to do with the (canting) keel, because, with it out to one side, it’s actually holding you over instead of righting the boat like a fixed keel,” he said.

“There’s nothing to bring you back up. They pressed the button, the keel went over to the other side, it brought us up, someone dragged me into the centre of the boat, the ‘chute came down and then bang, we just snapped out the spinnaker staysail and we were off again.”

It wasn’t all so hectic, though. “Coming across Bass Strait it was crystal clear and there was a light breeze. We were looking up at the stars and saying,’this is heaven’, knowing it would turn into hell soon.”

Sure enough, the wind and seas kicked in as they rocketed down the Tasmanian coast towards Hobart and eventual victory.

“Chris Bull (Victoire’s former owner, who raced her as Jazz) has been so supportive. He said to me that she’d come second twice and this was her year. She should have won a couple of times, but the wind dropped out. This time it held." This was Hodgkinson’s third go at the race, having competed in 2010 and 2011 on his Beneteau 45.

Elated with the win, Hodgkinson said, “This is the culmination of a great campaign, it’s a personal victory and one I share with all sailors who did the race. I feel somewhat humbled to have won.”

The exuberant skipper was quick to praise his mostly amateur crew and put the win down to meticulous planning and preparation. He praised tactician and strategist Sean Kirkjian – a 17-time race veteran – and said, “He’s a wizard, who is just playing ‘ocean chess’ all the time”.  As well he touted Danny McConville, who has prepared two or three Hobart winners before, and said “This boat was in marvelous condition before we left the dock. We had a fair bit of preparation, I’d say.”

Victoire’s navigator, Phil Eadie confirmed the meticulous preparation and ‘leaving no stone unturned’ approach and said, “A lot of work has gone into this with Darryl. He had meetings every morning for months, making sure everything works.

Eadie has sailed in 34 editions of the race, and used that experience to draw from, “I plotted the tracks of a lot of the ones we’ve won before or other people have won before, just to sort of get a feel of it – that we didn’t step too far outside of the paddock.

“There was a lot of preplanning, mostly in the last 24 hours before the start – we planned the whole race what we would do in theory, based on the weather, and had that laid out – and balanced that against reality. We have a really good weather guy, Chris Buckley from Perth, and he gave us a lot of good input.”

Hodgkinson recalled the key elements of Victoire’s win, “It was a fairly tough race. When we got that heavy northeasterly, there were moments when we had to believe in ourselves, and our yacht. We knew this boat had won before, and so we let it run. We knew we were only going to win if we pressed really hard, and we couldn’t let our foot off the pedal. And there were some moments when the foot was right down and it was like ‘oh, this is a ride’, and we were thrilled.

“But we changed our sail plan after that, and were quite surprised with the change from the A4 [headsail] to A6, how we could still maintain the speed. So I think we learned on the stick, as it were, on that one.”

A steady stream of yachts has crossed the line over the past 24 hours, and as of 9am GMT, there were 12 yachts still racing. The back marker was the 38-footer, Déjà Vu, which was expected at the finish early on the morning of January 1 local time.