The 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race was the most disastrous event in any offshore race held in Australian waters. During the afternoon of 27 December, the fleet encountered a severe storm off the coast of southern New South Wales that caused the abandonment of five yachts and forced a further 66 boats to retire from the race. The aim of this paper is to provide a description of the evolution and subsequent development of the sea-state during the storm. A high-resolution 0.1° wave model forced by high-quality wind fields has been run over the Bass Strait region for a 36-hour period during the yacht race (11pm 26 December to 11am 28 December). Wind forcing fields were obtained from the lowest level of a very high-resolution (0.05°) atmospheric model. The significant wave height (SWH) in the race region is found to be high throughout most of the time period with a maximum SWH of 8.5 m, east of Gabo Island during the evening of 27 December. The predominant wave direction is towards the northeast, however, the existence of westerly propagating swell, forced by an earlier storm in the Tasman Sea contributes to confused seas in this region. The wave model compares qualitatively very well with observations of SWH at Kingfish B platform in Bass Strait. Possible sources of error in SWH include the lack of current or depth refraction in the model, remaining errors in the surface wind fields, and the omission of ‘gustiness’ in the wave growth term within the wave model.
D. J. M. Greenslade (Thu,) studied this question.