Radio SILENCE Sydney-Hobart
Seventy-five years of tradition will end on Boxing Day when the Sydney-Hobart fleet sets off on their 628nm race South without a radio relay vessel in support.
A radio vessel – usually a powerful motor launch – has accompanied the yachts to Hobart every year since 1951. For the past decade that role has been filled by JBW (left). The boat was provided entirely without charge by Sydney yachtsman John Winning Snr. and crewed by volunteers. Twice-daily position reporting during the race was coordinated at sea on HF by an experienced operator until most of the competing yachts were within VHF range of the Hobart finish.
Under the new regime, the scheduled position reports – known to crews as “skeds” – will be done as text messages by Satphone to a computer at the Race Control Centre. Those positions are then available by return email to interested yachts. Similarly, the mandatory call-in abeam of Green Cape (to assure the Race Committee that the yacht and its crew are fit to begin the Bass Strait crossing) will now also be done by Satphone.
The more significant difference is that under the previous HF system run by the radio relay vessel, the entire fleet could listen in to the skeds at the same time. That capacity was also crucial to reporting bad weather, sightings of hazards to shipping, and to coordinate any search and rescue responses. The fixed times of the compulsory HF skeds ensured that everyone had equal and simultaneous access to the same information.
It is, of course, inevitable that the conduct of offshore racing will adopt new communications technology. But by dispensing with the radio relay vessel and the traditional position reporting system the Sydney-Hobart will lose an important component of the sense of community and comradeship that has helped make the event unique.
