Sydney Hobart Race
This year the Sydney Hobart Race will be in its 69th year. As the name suggests this yacht race starts in Sydney Australia, on Boxing Day, and finishes some 630 nautical miles later in Hobart Tasmania.
The Sydney Hobart race is considered to be one of the most difficult yacht races in the world. The race takes the yachts past the Bass Straits which lie between Australia’s south coast and the north coast of Tasmania. The waters of the Bass Straits and the Pacific to the East of the straits are renowned for their high winds and difficult seas. The race takes place during the Summer months in Australia, but it can be subjected to the Southerly Busters that frequent this part of the world between October and February.
Southerly Busters are a weather phenomenon that is not uncommon in southern Australia, Tasmania and also Argentina. They are, however, particularly fierce in the southeast of Australia due to the Great Dividing Range. They are storms or cold fronts of air that come from the south bringing with them bad weather and strong gusts of wind.
In Australia, Southerly Busters typically form when a cold front passes over southeast Australia and cool air becomes trapped against the mountains of the Great Dividing Range, often around the State of Victoria. While the inland part of the cold front is trapped against the mountains, the part over the sea continues to move along the coast. This system continues on up the southern New South Wales coast, while areas ahead of the front are experiencing hot northerly or westerly winds. The weather system moves north as a shallow ‘density current’. This means the air behind the Southerly Buster is cold and dense in comparison to the hotter conditions ahead. The process is further helped by the position of the Great Dividing Range. These mountains create a channelling effect as the southerly winds move along the coast of New South Wales. In the right conditions winds will accelerate rapidly, surging north with increasing intensity towards Sydney. Definitions of the Southerly Buster vary, with the Bureau of Meteorology defining them as southerly winds gusting in excess of 29 knots and a three-hour temperature drop of at least five degrees. A typical Southerly Buster can be between 20 and 60 nautical miles wide, with the strongest winds centered on the coastal area. The strongest Southerly Buster ever recorded was at Sydney Airport on 18 December 1948, with a maximum gust of 61 knots. The strongest gust recorded anywhere along the New South Wales coast was 70 knots at Port Kembla on 20 November 1973.
The course of the Sydney Hobart race takes the competitors down the New South Wales coast. If a Southerly Buster happens to be moving up the same coast, then this makes for very challenging and difficult sailing conditions should the Boats and Buster meet!
For information about the race, visit Rolex Sydney Hobart Race
Photo Credit: Peti_Morgan via Compfight cc
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Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race
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