text: Executives Face the Elements As Yacht Race Turns Deadly - WSJ
  Executives Face the Elements As Yacht Race Turns Deadly
  From the book "The Proving Ground" by G. Bruce Knecht. Copyright 2001 by G. Bruce Knecht. To be published by Little, Brown & Co., an imprint of AOL Time Warner Inc.
  May 29, 2001 12:11 am ET
  The worst disaster in recent ocean-racing history took place off Australia after 115 yachts set out on the Sydney to Hobart Race the day after Christmas 1998, a Saturday. The 630-mile race would take them across one of the world's most treacherous bodies of water to the capital of Australia's island state of Tasmania. A day after the start, the fleet was battered by hurricane-force winds and enormous waves that continued into the next day and the day after that. When the storm was over, several boats had been lost, six men had died, and those who survived were forever changed.
  One of the boats in the race was Sayonara, a "maxi-yacht" owned by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle Corp. and, then and now, one of the world's richest men. Those on board with him included Lachlan Murdoch, media baron Rupert Murdoch's eldest son and heir apparent.