Beaten in the boardroom, Ichi Ban wins controversial Sydney-Hobart after protest
Ichi Ban wins the 76th Sydney-Hobart in the jury room, giving skipper Matt Allen his fourth overall victory. LATEST >>
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SYDNEY yachtsman Matt Allen has now won four Sydney to Hobart races but his victory in the 76th edition came with a bitter-sweet taste.
Allen and the crew on his 52-footer Ichi Ban were gifted the win after rival Celestial, also of Sydney, was penalized 40 minutes for a breach of the race’s communications code _ they were not manning their radio for 90-minute period while officials were trying to ask them why a crewman’s emergency beacon had gone off.
After a marathon jury hearing that started on Thursday and went into the small hours of Friday at the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, Celestial’s penalty was enough for defending champion Ichi Ban to jump it into the lead and claim the Tattersalls Trophy.
“It’s an amazing feeling to have gone back to back in the Rolex Sydney to Hobart race,” Allen said.
“We’re all elated. We’ve enjoyed the champagne and we’re just keen now to celebrate after the late announcement of the win given the weather and what was happening behind the scenes. “
Allen praised his rivals for their superb sailing.
“I take my hat off to the guys on Celestial. It was a match race between our boats all the way and we were pretty confident one of the two boats was going to win the race overall,” Allen said.
“They sailed a brilliant race. We’d always prefer to win on the water. Sailors don’t like going to the [jury] room. But sailing has many rules and they are important to abide by, especially the ones related to safety.”
Ichi Ban was asked to fire a distress flare to draw Celestial’s attention and get them back on the radio. When the finished, Celestial was slapped with a protest by the Race Committee, and Ichi Ban was awarded a 14m15s redress to its race time.
Allen said it was a “straight-forward protest” and he believed it would be upheld by the Sydney-Hobart’s independent International Jury.
The protest hearing took four hours and the jury another three hours to release its findings.
Allen’s first Sydney-Hobart win came on Lou Abraham’s yacht Challenge in 1983, followed by person wins on his series of boats called Ichi Ban in 2017 and 2019, and 2021.
It was the first yacht in 57 years to go back-to-back. The others were Tasmanian yacht Westward in 1947-48 and NSW yacht Freya’s threepeat in 1963-64-65.
“It’s a lifetime dream to win one, let alone four Sydney-Hobart races,” Allen said.
“It’s an incredibly difficult race to win. As the fleet becomes more diverse over the years it become a more difficult race to win because you need to be the best boat on your part of the race track but you also need the weather gods to provide the luck of the winds.”
Of the 88 yachts that started the race at 1pm on Boxing Day, 36 boats retired and 35 were expected to finish by midnight New Year’s Eve, well after Black Jack took line honours at 1.37am on Wednesday.
The fleet’s Tail-End Charlie, the army training boat Gun Runner, is expected home on Sunday, with officials assuring they have provisions to last them to January 2.
EARLIER - Bombshell decision as Sydney-Hobart yacht stripped of win
A TASMANIAN sailor and his Celestial crewmates have been controversially stripped of overall victory in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race over the accidental activation of an emergency beacon and failure to answer the radio when officials called to check they were okay.
A six-hour protest by the Sydney-Hobart Race Committee, and rival yacht Ichi Ban, which was placed second to Celestial on overall handicap, found Celestial guilty of failing to respond to calls from race control for a 90-minute window.
Celestial, a Sydney yacht owned by Sam Haynes and with Hobart’s Troy Grafton as mainsail trimmer and part-time helmsman, copped a 40-minute penalty.
That was enough to tip it off top spot back to second, swapping places with defending champion Ichi Ban.
It made Ichi Ban the first boat in 50 years to win the Sydney-Hobart back-to-back on handicap.
Sydney-Hobart officials protested against Celestial for failing to respond to calls when Australian Maritime Safety Authority detected that a Personal Locator Beacon assigned to Wulf Wilkens, a crew member on Celestial, was activated.
It was one of 12 false activations during the race.
Repeated calls from the race officials failed to reach Celestial, so they asked the nearest boat Ichi Ban to try on their VHF radio with the same result despite numerous attempts from Ichi Ban and another Sydney-Hobart boat Quest.
Ichi Ban was instructed to send up a flare to draw the attention of Celestial’s crew and get them on the radio. After that failed, Ichi Ban was instructed to send up a red distress flare, which worked.
The protest conclusion said:
“Celestial contacted Ichi Ban on VHF 16 using the navigator’s handheld VHF radio on deck. Ichi Ban informed Celestial that the reason for the red flare was to attract Celestial’s attention at the request of the Race Committee due to the activated PLB.
“Celestial confirmed the PLB activation was accidental, and all crew were safe.
“Celestial deactivated the PLB. Celestial sent a text message to the Race Committee through their satellite phone to confirm the PLB activation was accidental, and all crew were safe. An attempted satellite call failed.
“The Race Committee informed AMSA, enabling the search and rescue aircraft on standby to be stood down.
“The distance between Ichi Ban and Celestial did not significantly change throughout the incident duration.
“At all times Ichi Ban continued to race the boat and did not alter course as a result of the incident, however Ichi Ban did prepare and deploy two flares which temporarily affected her performance.
“At the time of deploying the flares, it was reasonable for Ichi Ban to assume that Celestial needed help.
“It is possible that Ichi Ban’s finishing position in the race was made significantly worse through no fault of her own by giving help in compliance with RRS 1.1 to someone else than herself or her crew.
“A Discretionary Penalty of 40 minutes in lieu of disqualification is to be added to Celestial’s elapsed time.”
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