Sydney Hobart set for fast race

This year's Sydney Hobart shapes as a fast race, with favourable northerly breezes for the big boats that might hurt the handicap hopes of the smaller end of the fleet.

The long-range forecast for the race commencing Boxing Day has the event commencing under light east to north easterlies, with freshening nor' easterlies along the NSW Coast later in the afternoon.

There is a chance all four supermaxis will finish before a trough and a shift to south easterly winds, which may not happen until the 28th of December, while another trough could arrive toward the end of next week.

"It looks like the big boats will be able to do most of the race in the north-easterly," said Stan Honey, the navigator on nine-times line honours winner Hamilton Island Wild Oats.

On current forecasts, connections of all four supermaxis are looking at the line honours winner finishing around 2am Wednesday morning.

That would be just under four hours slower than LDV Comanche's 2017 race record of one day nine hours fifteen minutes and 24 seconds.

Mark Bradford, skipper of last year's line honours winner Black Jack, said Hamilton Island Wild Oats had the best track record in the forecast conditions but expected little would separate the four maximum-length boats.

"We've got the best light air boat so if we can get to the Derwent and particularly if it gets to 4am, and it gets a bit lighter up the Derwent that would really suit us," Bradford told AAP.

Three-time line honours winner Andoo Comanche has been the form supermaxi In the lead-up races, consistently beating her rivals.  

"The forecast is generally good for us, we like going downwind," Andoo Comanche navigator Justin Shaffer said.

LawConnect, which finished second across the line last year, would prefer more upwind sailing.

"Whether it suits us or not I don't know," senior LawConnect crew member Tony Mutter told AAP.

The mid-sized TP52 boats have dominated overall honours in recent times with Ichi Ban winning three of the last four races, but that yacht isn't competing this year. 

"The issue for us (TP52s) is that the big boats will possibly do this in one weather pattern and depending on how this change pans out on the Wednesday, it will affect how the fleet do in this race," said race stalwart Michael Bellingham, the navigator of TP52 Patrice.

The smaller boats targeting handicap glory are set to face a greater and potentially more challenging range of conditions than their bigger rivals.  

"It's looking like a big boat race possibly, they do it in one weather system the TPs might do it in two weather systems, we're probably going through three," said Duncan McRae navigator on the 34-foot White Bay 6 Azzurro.

Bradford thought the handicap favourites based on the current forecast were the bigger boats just below the supermaxis URM Group, Moneypenny, Whisper and Willow, all of which are between 62 and 72 foot.