Monday, December 26, 2005

Boats on the Box

In most Commonwealth countries, today is Boxing Day, whose history comes from England in that it was the day that servants of the wealthy manors had the day off to be with their families. Or, depending on who you believe, it was the day that in feudal times the lords were required to hand out annual stipends of common goods to the serfs who lived on their lands. For us, it was the day we threw away all of the boxes from the day before.

Today was the annual Sydney to Hobart (Tasmania) race, which involved 85 participants of three different length boat categories and about a million spectators who took every jet-ski, dinghy and yacht to line the course and escort them out into the sea. It was something out a children's book, watching this massive flotilla all on the move at once. The entire horizon was just whitewater from all the commotion. Wikipedia has a good article as well. Check out today's picture from our friend Mr. Murphy at Sydney Web Cam.

Here's a link to the photo gallery from the Sydney Morning Herald's coverage...

We definitely played the part of the ignorant tourist on this one, trying to head up the peninsula an hour before the start of the race and running into a pretty hairy traffic jam. Apparently, many others had the same idea. After they passed 'the heads' and took a right hand turn south towards Tassie, we could see the procession quite clearly. The helicopters covering the event were so aggressively close to these huge moving vessels. It must have been such an annoyance for these competition boats to have to edge through thousands of private ships before getting into the open sea. The racing boats looked like moth wings fluttering their way towards the horizon.

The race usually takes lasts over the course of a twenty-four hour period. A few years back, the Tasman sea experienced some extremely rough storms and fifty-five crewman needed to be rescued, with six people dying, and only one third of the boats even completing the race. So it isn't all mint juleps and sunshine once they get away from the mainland. If you have Google Earth installed, you can get a live feed as well. (This link has been acting a bit buggy, so watch out...)

Next year, we'll have a better understanding of how popular of an event it is and where to strategically place ourselves to gain a better vantage point. If there is a next year, I guess.

posted by ncawthon at 10:00 PM