Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race 2023 LIVE: LawConnect snatches ...

Andoo Comanche has put the foot down, snatching the lead back from LawConnect just after midday today.

John Winning’s Andoo Comanche has led for most of the 23 hours so far, but LawConnect nudged ahead after a rough and windy night took its toll on both supermaxis - LawConnect lost a sail after it was ‘destroyed’ in the storm.

We’re just over halfway through the race now, but with conditions working against the teams, it’s unlikely we’ll have a result tonight.

Early retiree Rum Rebellion has made it back to the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia after a rough night at sea, which included skipper Shane Connelly being thrown overboard.

At about 6pm last night, the two-man boat was between Cronulla and Wollongong, about 20 nautical miles out to sea when the wind suddenly increased.

A micro-bust of wind hit the boat, causing a knockdown and throwing Connelly overboard. He attached his tether back to the boat, and as the boat righted itself, Connelly was lifted back on board.

The pair decided to retire the boat with concerns Connelly might have suffered a concussion. Both skippers are ok, and on his return to Sydney, Connelly said, “the safety drills and systems all worked, and we could sort ourselves out”.

Sydney to Hobart veteran Peter Shipway has declared the race record will not be broken in 2023 as Andoo Comanche and LawConnect remain neck-and-neck at the head of the fleet.

“The race record is no chance,” said Shipway, who has won the Hobart twice on handicap and five times on line honours.

“They’d have to finish by quarter past ten tonight, and they’re still not even halfway.”

“I think we’re probably at least 24 hours, maybe 30 hours, from a finish. It could be a daylight finish tomorrow.”

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Peter Shipway on Marloo in 1979.Credit: Fairfax Media

Almost 22 hours down, and we have our next casualty.

Georgia Express is the latest boat to retire from the race, getting as far as Kioloa on the east coast of NSW before turing back.

No news yet as to what caused them to retire, but we’ll let you know as soon as it lands.

Michael Spies had done 39 Sydney to Hobarts before needing to be rescued. It actually happened after the 2017 yacht race, in January 2018 when he was sailing Hollywood Boulevard back to NSW. The reason? They hit a sunfish.

“The situation was actually quite a serious one,” says Spies, who will this year skipper Maritimo 52 in his 45th race. “We were off the northern tip of Tassie, change of watch in the morning, came up and bang. We heard a bit of a thud, nothing excessive.”

“I looked around and saw it there, sort of wallowing away. We wouldn’t have done any damage to it, but it snapped the rudder and then the boat started taking water, and we had to abandon ship. We got plucked out of Bass Strait – a helicopter had to come and get us. They are a treacherous thing.”

The unusual-looking sunfish.Credit: iStock

They are ocean sunfish. The mola mola. The biggest bony fish in the world weighing as much as a large SUV. The lumpy and awkward, slow-moving and perpetually open-mouthed mammoth that, almost every year it seems, maims or destroys a Sydney to Hobart campaign just by existing.

Read the full report here.

Christian Beck’s LawConnect has snatched the lead from Andoo Comanche after 21 hours of racing.

After a rough and wild night at sea, the two supermaxis have swapped positions, with Andoo Comanche now 0.8 nautical miles behind LawConnect.

With about 333 nautical miles left in the race, it’s still unclear which boat will claim line honours.

LawConnect has lost one of its sails after a wild night of weather and a morning spent battling the breeze.

The boat’s sailing master Tony Mutter provided an update just before 10am on Wednesday morning.

“We’ve got the breeze from the west at the moment, and we’ve been battling that for about the last three hours,” he said.

“Unfortunately, its cost us one sail, so we’ve got one sail destroyed, so hopefully we don’t need it too much going forward.

“But looking at how [Andoo] Comanche is going, I think we’re all going to be a bit wounded after last night.”

Things are starting to heat up at the front of the race, with Christian Beck’s LawConnect starting to gain on race leader Andoo Comanche.

The two supermaxis have been playing cat and mouse all night, and just four nautical miles separated them at 7am this morning.

But as the boats head into Bass Strait, LawConnect has made ground, and is now just 0.5 nautical miles off Andoo Comanche.

LawConnect is close to snatching the lead from Andoo Comanche.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone