How's the weather? Those three words epitomise meaningless small talk, normally. But this is one instance where there's nothing of greater importance than what's blowing in the wind from the NSW Bureau of Meteorology. Skippers of the 100 boats were scratching their heads earlier in the week when one weather report predicted southerly winds for the start - while another was forecasting a northerly. That would seem to be a fairly large discrepancy in weather forecasts. The fleet will head out of Sydney Harbour at 1pm in one of the more iconic scenes plucked from the sporting calendar. They'll go from two different starting lines to avoid V8-style collisions on water, even if those collisions would be in the slowest possible motion. Latest weather reports suggested a southerly from the gun, a north-east flow while the yachts hug the eastern seaboard tomorrow and then a west-to-south-westerly up to 20-30 knots late on Monday. Wild Oats XI skipper Mark Richards and Alfa Romeo's Neville Crichton both doubt their boats will get near Wild Oats's race record of one day, 18 hours, 40 minutes and, last but not least, 10 seconds. The backdrop to the Sydney to Hobart is the possibility of life-threatening conditions but it isn't on the cards this year if the bureau can be trusted. The only crews likely to encounter trouble are those on the smaller boats struggling into Hobart at the tail end of the race next week. By which time the crews of Wild Oats and Alfa Romeo will be going ho-ho-ho with a bottle of rum.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald