The 1998 Sydney–Hobart Race — A Boxing Day classic torn apart in Bass Strait

On 27–28 December 1998 a violent storm struck the fleet of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in Bass Strait, the notoriously shallow and turbulent water between mainland Australia and Tasmania, killing six sailors and sinking five boats in the deadliest edition of the race’s history. Of the 115 yachts that started the 628-nautical-mile course from Sydney Harbour to Hobart on Boxing Day, only 44 finished. Seven yachts were abandoned, five of them sank, and 55 sailors were lifted to safety in what became the largest peacetime rescue operation Australia had mounted, involving some 35 aircraft and 27 Royal Australian Navy vessels.

The storm was an intense, fast-forming low — an East Coast Low that deepened explosively over Bass Strait — bringing sustained winds above 65 knots, gusts toward 80, and seas reported to 15 metres. The shallow Strait stacked the swell into steep, breaking walls that rolled and dismasted boats across the fleet. Glyn Charles was swept overboard from Sword of Orion and never recovered. Aboard Business Post Naiad, Bruce Guy died of a heart attack and Phil Skeggs drowned during repeated knockdowns. The 1942-built wooden yacht Winston Churchill broke up and sank, and three of her crew — John Dean, James Lawler and Michael Bannister — died after their life raft was overwhelmed in the seas.

The race is remembered as the disaster that ended an era of assumed invulnerability in one of yachting’s premier events. A New South Wales coronial inquest, its findings released on 12 December 2000, was sharply critical of both the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, which it found had “abdicated its responsibility to manage the race,” and the Bureau of Meteorology for failing to ensure that the deteriorating forecast reached the fleet with the force it warranted. The inquest’s recommendations reshaped the race and influenced offshore safety worldwide.