Skippers of two of the leading Sydney to Hobart supermaxis have warned of the potential for damage from strong northerlies, which could also put the race record under threat.

The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast predominantly nor’easter winds becoming fresh to strong on Tuesday and Wednesday.

That will assist the four supermaxis, with the line honours winner having to finish before 10.15pm on Tuesday to beat LDV Comanche’s 2017 record of one day, nine hours, fifteen minutes and 24 seconds.

The record holder, which has returned to the race as Andoo Comanche, is the strong favourite to notch her fourth line honours victory in her first attempt at the great race since 2019.

Records or wrecks?

“Its a race that could definitely rack up a record especially with Comanche,” said Hamilton Island Wild Oats skipper Mark Richards, whose boat finished ahead of LDV Comanche in 2017, but was later slapped with a one-hour penalty.

Cruising Yacht Club of Australia commodore Arthur Lane and Kingsley Piesse, the navigator on the 40-footer Chutzpah, are others who believe the race record could fall.

Strong winds increase the risk of boat damage and Mark Bradford, skipper of last year’s line honours winner Black Jack warned breakages could potentially retire a boat, including one of the four supermaxis.

“Some of these assets have been lying dormant for a couple of years and every day you are finding things that have fatigued,” Bradford told AAP.

“We’ve kept sailing so our boat has been maintained at a high level right through.

“I hope it’s not us and hope it’s not anyone but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone goes out with gear failure.”

His Andoo Comanche counterpart, John Winning Jr, has already experienced damage since chartering the boat earlier this year and stressed it might not take much to retire the powerful vessel.

‘A lot that can go wrong’

“We can break it just by pushing the wrong winch button or trying to run too many winches at once,” Winning told AAP.

“We’re using a lot that can go wrong, we’ve had two breakages in races since we’ve had it, more breakages outside of races in the training.”

Winning said the forecast was good for his supermaxi but Richards was also bullish about his boat’s prospects, with the nine-time line honours champion on Wild Oats XI, which returns to the race after three years.

“We’ve put all our eggs in one basket this year and prepared the boat the best we could for a downwind race and someone shined on us and got a fantastic forecast for exactly that,” Richards said.

Conditions are set to be more varied and challenging for the smaller to mid-sized boats, who don’t reach the finish as quickly as the supermaxis.

A cold front is expected to bring a south-westerly change on Wednesday with winds tending southerly by Thursday morning.

Strong wind warnings are likely to develop from late Tuesday with a potential gale wind warning on Wednesday.

The forecast could help the always strong TP52 contingent and boats between 60 and 70 foot in the battle for overall honours.

-AAP