Three hundred and forty pages of formal Coroner's findings. Those who lost their lives and those who nearly did in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart would have expected no less. It's critical of the organisers and the Bureau of Meteorology. It has specific criticisms on some safety equipment and it calls on the yachting community to be more responsible. The Blue Water Classic has already changed forever.
Stricter rules are already in place to prevent a repeat.
In the 1998 race some of the world's most experienced yachtsmen sailed into a storm they couldn't survive, a storm of which they had little forewarning. The New South Wales' Coroner also examined the processes put in place by the weather Bureau in relaying the information they had about the storm that lay ahead of racegoers in Bass Strait on Boxing Day. The finding comes at the end of the so called Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's military sexual slavery. Now we seem to be back in one of those cycles when economics lives up to its reputation as the dismal science. Higher fuel prices, cash flow squeeze, low business confidence and weaker retail spending - the evidence continues to mount.