Sydney to Hobart Regatta

Our first Boxing Day here, we went to the Sydney to Hobart Regatta. It's a huge sailing race that leaves out of the Sydney Harbour and goes down to Hobart, Tasmania. The boats are really serious sailing boats, and the race takes a few days to finish. This year, the race was predicted to have some pretty rough weather, especially down toward the southern part of Australia. So we were excited to see the boats off!

We caught an early ferry over to Watson Bay. The boats all leave from within the actual harbour, which means you can watch them line up for the start and see who gets an early lead if you get a vantage point on the South or North Head. We opted for the South, as it's a bit easier to get to on public transport.

On the ferry over to Circular Quay, we passed one of the boats practicing before the start. That particular boat did really well in the race - in the top 5 finishers.

We also saw this disaster heading out in the harbour; I think it was basically a floating bar pushed by a tugboat. 

We found a spot in the shade and somewhat out of the wind and had our picnic. 

There were tons of spectators up on the cliffside with us - I think more than the first year we came. 

We were there about an hour and a half early. By that time, all the contestant boats were in the harbour, sailing around and waiting for the start. It looks a bit like this: 

The race starts at 1, so toward then, all the boats start making their run up to the line. It's like order coming out of chaos. 

This happened to be a pretty unique race. There was supposed to be a starting cannon that fires to indicate the race start, but the usual boat that coordinates that started taking on water! So there was some other starting indicator that we couldn't really see from our distance. Also, the winds were really poor for getting momentum out of the harbour, so you can see the boats start tacking and pulling some crazy maneuvers right after the start. 

It was so crazy down in the harbour that several boats collided and some were out of the race immediately. 

We walked across to the other side of the point so we could see the boats heading out into the sea. 

The weather got really rough for these guys over the next couple days. Most of the boats that were leading out of the harbour had to withdraw with boat damage, and in total, a third of the boats ended up retiring throughout the race. It's high drama and so fun to follow!