Peter Mactier’s Sydney to Hobart wrap-up

We gave Peter some breathing time before we got all the details from his first Sydney to Hobart.
Racing on ‘Wings’, Peter and the rest of the team were extremely lucky having 3 days of down-wind.
As lucky as they were with the down-wind, Peter was quietly happy to get some up-wind on the last day of the race. It meant he got a “real taste of Hobart: getting doused, proper rough seas”.

Getting a little calmness in Storm Bay, heading into Hobart, ‘Wings’ had a good tussle with two boats towards the end, being beaten by one and beating the other.
Overall, ‘Wings’ placed 50th out of the 79 finishing competitors, which was a good result considering some issues from start to finish:
40 minutes prior to the start on 26th December, ‘Wings’ had some instrument issues that lead to Peter climbing up the mast to do a check and found birds had been chewing wires. Fortunately ‘Wings’ had enough data to start.

There was a significant loss when there was an error in a spinnaker retrieval that got dropped in the water and broke the spinnaker pole.
‘Wings’ got stuck in a washing machine off Maria Island with zero wind and a choppy current.
Coming up the Derwent was challenging for ‘Wings’ using a code zero kite due to the spinnaker loss.
With all the challenges throughout the race however, ‘Wings’ had a 1am finish thanks to a great and proactive crew, skipper and most of all boat. The Dehler performed beyond well and all aboard were extremely happy with her efforts.

The Dehler 46 ‘Wings’ plans to be back next year for the 75th Sydney to Hobart which is set to be bigger than ever.