First date in Boxing Day race

THE “Fab Four” – the quartet of multimillion- dollar ocean racing machinery favoured to dominate this year’s Sydney to Hobart – won’t meet each other until the starting cannon fires on Boxing Day.

InfoTrack, which last year smashed the race record as Perpetual Loyal, is avoiding any confrontation until the 1pm start on December 26.

Neville Crichton and his team on LDV Comanche, which won line honours in 2015, are adopting the same approach.

“We start training on our own,” Crichton said of his 100footer, borrowed from Netscape founder Jim Clark for his last hoorah in the classic.

“We won’t be doing any races at all, just training.”

InfoTrack skipper Christian Beck said he and his crew would also use private training sessions, rather than racing, to prepare for the race.

A novice to offshore racing, Beck said his personal goal was to win the race up Sydney Harbour and through Sydney Heads.

Under old skipper Anthony Bell, Perpetual Loyal achieved this feat last year before going on to slash five hours off Wild Oats’ race record with a new mark of one day 13 hours.

But while the last two Sydney to Hobart winners will be missing in action in today’s Big Boat Race, Wild Oats and Black Jack will contest the annual curtain- raiser.