Sydney ---------> Hobart '25

Current leader to be protested? on 'sheeting sails' rules. Shock protest against yacht on brink of historic Sydney Hobart victory. Anyone care to enlighten us?
Can’t pole out the clew of an a-sail is the basic issue. You have to pole out the tack. Lots of lovely photos of the boat approaching the finish line like that, so doesn’t look like they were aware…

Slight unintended consequence of the crack down on whisker poles being used to open up the sheeting angle of jibs on a reach. But that’s what the rule says.

I was surprised that a boat at the sharp end of the fleet didn’t know that to be honest.
 
Putting the protest aside for the moment, interesting that currently 7 boats in the top 10 on IRC are double handers. And this in a race with breezy headwinds for much of the distance, where one might expect the weight of gorillas on the rail would be very advantageous.
So is a crew now superfluous, or indeed a handicap, for offshore racing?
 
More to do with the optimum rating band in the prevailing conditions happening to be the same as the bulk of the D/H boats. And that the best sailors in that band currently are choosing to D/H. For example go look up the sailing CV of Alexis Loison on Min river.
 
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