LawConnect yesterday won line honors in the 78th edition of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, holding off the crew of Andoo Comanche, the defending champions, by less than a minute in an exciting finish between the super maxis.
The pair of 100-foot yachts had dueled for much of the race and were well ahead of the rest of the fleet of 103 that started the race on Tuesday in Sydney Harbour.
LawConnect, runners-up in the past three editions of the race, finished in 1 day, 19 hours, 3 minutes, 58 seconds. Comanche’s time was 1 day, 19 hours, 4 minutes, 49 seconds — a margin of just 51 seconds.
Photo: AP
It was the second-closest finish in Sydney to Hobart history after Condor of Bermuda beat Apollo by seven seconds in 1982.
In yesterday’s finish, both yachts performed several late jibes as they attempted to secure the lead.
“I can’t believe that result. Honestly, it is a dream come true,” LawConnect skipper and owner Christian Beck said. “They took the lead pretty close to the line and we thought there was no way we could get it back.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
“A wind gust came around. It was a complete surprise. There were guys who couldn’t watch,” Beck said.
“It was very nerve wracking,” he added.
Comanche set the race record of 1 day, 9 hours, 15 minutes, 24 seconds when it won the race in 2017.
“It is pretty painful, we’ve got an amazing boat that should have won,” Comanche skipper and owner John Winning Jr said of yesterday’s result. “The other guys sailed their guts out and left nothing on the table. They beat us with an underdog boat, those guys deserve all the praise they get.”
“It was one of the most epic finishes in probably any sailing race I know,” Winning said. “In the last three minutes, I think the lead changed three times.”
Comanche and LawConnect were clear front-runners from just out of Sydney Harbour. The pair began the trip down the New South Wales south coast at a fast clip, but fell off the race record pace.
The finish was at Constitution Dock in Hobart, the capital of the island state of Tasmania.
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