Andoo Comanche caught in tornado with no way out
Shattered, beating himself up and “pained’’ at his loss by under a minute in the Sydney to Hobart, Andoo Comanche skipper John “Herman’’ Winning still had an extraordinary story to tell of being caught “inside a tornado’’ at sea.
Winner last year, Andoo Comanche finished second behind Christian Beck’s LawConnect by just 51 seconds when overtaken in the final glide towards the finish line on Thursday morning.
“Everyone left their hearts out there,’’ Winning said after a race in which a lot more had happened than he planned.
He also complimented his rivals on their success.
“I don’t like coming second,’’ he said. “I don’t mind it sometimes but certainly when you are the favourite it’s pretty painful.
“We were the favourite because we have an amazing boat that should have won the race.
“We have an amazing crew. I know I beat myself up around not being able to deliver a win for those guys, and my sister Jamie is included in that.
“But the other guys (on LawConnect) sailed their butts off. They sailed out of their skin. They left nothing on the table.
“We should have beaten them had we sailed as well as I know we can. I think our boat was definitely the better boat, as Christian sort of said in the past.
“I say that with a bigger compliment to them that they didn’t just beat us, they beat us with an underdog boat.”
Winning later described how Andoo Comanche had been sucker-punched by a micro cell of thunderstorms in Bass Strait that caused wild winds, poor visibility, 360-degree spins and work overload for the navigators and tacticians.
“It wasn’t on any radar, in any predictions we had,’’ he said. “We got stuck in that for 10 hours and couldn’t get out.
“We tried to get out.
“What is the inside of the tornado, just this tiny lowpressure thunderstorm system that was there.
“And no matter where we went, it would just spin us around and we couldn’t get out of the centre of it.
“So we lost like 10 hours. I think other boats did as well because we could see them on our radar.’’
Winning said now that the 100-footer was returning to its overseas owner, he would concentrate on sailing his 18-foot skiff, working with the Australian women’s and youth America’s Cup teams and getting an Australian Cup campaign up and running.