Line-honours contender Comanche's navigator says bring on the wild weather as the Sydney to Hobart fleet braces for brutal conditions in Bass Strait.
While Michael Logan from the NSW Bureau of Meteorology on Tuesday played down concerns that the 109 boats may encounter the most dangerous winds since the deadly 1998 race, he warned of "choppy, wet and uncomfortable" conditions for the first night on Boxing Day.
"The conditions for the start of the race are going to hinge very much on when the next cold front comes through NSW on Boxing Day and the timing of that front is going to be really crucial," Logan said during his long-range forecast briefing at the Cruising Harbour Yacht Club.
"At this stage, we're currently expecting strengthening north-easterly winds for the first few hours of the race, including inside the harbour for the start of the race.
"That will be before the boats encounter what will be a strong southerly change on the NSW south coast for the first evening of the race.
"This looks like coming though around 25 to 35 knots. That will mean we're expecting conditions to be choppy, wet and a little uncomfortable for the first night of the race."
And the spectre of a low pressure system developing in the southern Tasman Sea on Sunday, which threatens to generate 50-knot gusts, also has leading race navigators preparing for the "worst-case scenario".
"The two scenarios we are looking at after the front are black and white. They are completely opposite," said Juan Vila, navigator of last year's line-honours winner Wild Oats XI.
"One is being a strong wind that could go up to 40, 50 knots. We want to prepare for that, in case it does happen.
"But also there's another scenario where it could be lighter conditions east of Tasmania. Time will tell."
But Stan Honey, navigator for Comanche, which finished runner-up last year, said his crew's only realistic hope of beating fellow 100-foot super maxi Wild Oats XI was if conditions were rough.
"We're preparing for the full range of forecasts that we've seen," Honey said.
"And we're looking forward to racing in any of them, except potentially we would not be eager to race in the scenarios that have a 12-hour or more period of very light air because that's not a condition that suits us best."
Six men died, five boats sank and 55 sailors were rescued in the fatal storm of 1998 when a Bass Strait bomb in the form of a deep depression exploded over the fleet.
Logan, though, said no early forecasts were providing any cause for alarm.
"If that low (on Sunday) does develop, it will mean there will be a continuation of the strong south, south-westerly winds through Bass Strait for a longer period throughout the race," he said.
"Even if you go through all of the scenarios that the computer models have at the moment, none of them have anything that was as strong as what occurred in 1998."
