The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is an icon of Australia’s summer sport, ranking in popularity with other national events such as the Davis Cup tennis and the Melbourne Cup horse race.
No yearly yachting event in the world attracts such huge media coverage as this race. The race starts on Boxing Day in Sydney, NSW and finishes in Hobart, Tasmania. The course covers a distance of 628 nautical miles from Sydney Harbour to the east coast of Australia, Bass Strait, the Tasmanian east coast, Storm Bay, Derwent River and finally Battery Point in Hobart, Tasmania.
The race has been hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia since its beginning in 1945 and is run in cooperation with the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania.
The public and media often focus a lot of attention on which yacht wins Line Honours. It's easy to understand why, because that's the first yacht to cross the finishing line. However, that is often not the Overall Winner. The exact rules to select the Overall Winner have changed over the years. Basically, it's a handicap race where a yacht's finish time is adjusted based on several factors set down in the prevailing rules. In other words, the fastest boat is often not the Overall Winner.
(http://alldownunder.com/oz-u/events/sydney-hobart-race-0.htm)
Go here to watch the start.
Click on the picture to get some first-hand news about this year's race.
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