76th Rolex Sydney Hobart Race: "Love and War" leads the handicap classification in the fractional race

Breaks and tasks in a row characterise the ongoing 76th Rolex Sydney Hobart Race at the end of the second night at sea. The international long-distance classic, which is being contested almost exclusively by Australian boats and their crews this year during the coronavirus pandemic, continues to challenge its participants with strong winds and rough waves. UFO collisions, mainsail and hull damage, broken or damaged foresails or backstays have already shattered the regatta dreams of many crews in the first half of the 628 nautical mile race from Sydney to Hobart on Tasmania. On Monday afternoon German time, the exact number of cancellations from the Australian night into Tuesday initially varied. However, towards the end of the second night at sea for the Sydney-Hobart fleet, which started on Boxing Day, it was clear that this edition was a tough one! The pictures from the second day show the challenging conditions well.

Among those hit on Monday were the crews on the Reichel Pugh 66 "Alive", the Beneteau First 40 "Ariel" (mainsail damage), the TP52 "Denali" (hull damage), the Muirhead 11 "Enchantress" (broken forestay), the Lombard Class 40 "Eora" (broken backstay), the TP52 "Gweilo" (damaged forestay) and the Cookson 50 "Oskana" (broken forestay). Among the remaining yachts, there were eleven from the double-handed division, in which the Akilaria RC 2 "Sidewinder" with skipper Rob Gough and John Saul led the battle for the double-handed line honours. Click here for the live tracker of the race (please click!). Alternatively show the "Standings" for the ten evaluation categories (please click!) to see at a glance who is still in the race and who has already been eliminated.

This year's top yachts still had just under 200 nautical miles to go on Monday afternoon German time to the finish off Hobart, where everything is already prepared for a warm welcome for the crews. The three-way battle at the top has hardly changed so far: Christian Beck's Juan K-100 "LawConnect" led the race with the extremely Ocean Race-experienced top performers Tony Mutter (New Zealand) and Chris Nicholson (Australia) by just four nautical miles ahead of Peter Harburg's RP 100 "Black Jack" under the Monaco flag with skipper Mark Bradford. In the meantime, Seng Huang Lee's "Scallywag" crew has somewhat digested their technical setback from the previous day. However, skipper David Witt's crew and their Dovell 100 were still a good 20 nautical miles behind the two leading hundred-footers. On Monday afternoon, Simon Kurt's Sparkman & Stevens 47 "Love & War", whose boat name fits the current race better than many sailors would like, was leading the handicap crew classification in both IRC and ORCi. "Love & War" was built for Peter Kurts in 1973 and has already won the most important prize of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, the Tattersall Cup, three times (1974, 1978, 2006). The 14.21 metre Sparkman & Stephens is now sailed by son Simon Curts and his crew.