A 90-year old sailor with a 75-year history of yacht racing has said Wild Oats XI should have been disqualified from the Sydney to Hobart for a manoeuvre that ultimately cost it line honours.

A race jury slapped Wild Oats XI with a one-hour penalty for breaking racing rules in a near collision with its closest rival Comanche at the start of the race.

Wild Oats XI arrived in Constitution Dock in record time, 26 minutes ahead of Comanche, but lost line honours after the penalty was applied.

Gordon Ingate, who initiated the America's Cup challenge and competed in many prestigious blue-water events, said the one-hour penalty was "peanuts".

"In the old days they were disqualified," he said.

"And he (Wild Oats skipper) should have been disqualified for this event, but the rules have been eased.

"The old method was we were disqualified — only 20 years ago.

"It was a very dangerous manoeuvre for (Wild Oats XI skipper Mark) Richards to have thought he could get across, (he could be) disqualified under rule 10, 13 and 14.

"Now we've got to make it known to the general public the jury found Wild Oats was wrong, that all falls back on Richards who took a very risky manoeuvre, with approximately 20 people on each boat, if there had of been a collision it would've been tremendous."

Ingate a dissenting voice

However a number of 'old salts' have expressed surprise at the severity of the punishment handed to Wild Oats XI.

Veteran sailor Peter Shipway, who competed in 31 Sydney to Hobart races, including some with the Wild Oats team, said he was not sure why the jury decided on a one-hour penalty.

"You could argue long and hard whether it should have been an hour, or five minutes or 10 minutes. I really don't understand how they arrived at one hour," Mr Shipway said.

"It's quite interesting, because the jury knew what the time difference between the two boats was. If they hadn't known that, then would they have applied the one hour penalty?"

Mr Shipway said Wild Oats XI could have possibly avoided the ultimate penalty by taking action straight after the incident.

"I really think that Wild Oats did tack too close to Comanche, and she did infringe the rules. [The jury] obviously felt it was a very significant infringement," he said.

"The question has to be asked, why they didn't do the 720 [degree] penalty turn — or two turns — to absolve themselves before they reached the outer sea-mark, which would have given them a clear passage to Hobart."

The Commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club, John Markos, said that while he respected the decision, he was surprised by the size of the penalty.

"Most everyone that was talking about it was thinking that if they had found against Wild Oats that it might be minutes, a number of minutes," he said.

"When everyone understands that you could unwind a penalty if you think you've infracted one of the rules that you could do a double 360, that's 720 turn, so that would then exonerate you."

Wild Oats XI skipper Mark Richards was gracious after hearing the jury's decision on Thursday, but would not be drawn on the matter of how it could have been avoided.

"At the time you sort of think it's a little bit different than what it obviously was," Mr Richards said.

"Obviously we're very, very disappointed but at the end of the day it's an international jury, they've got a job to do. They saw the incident the way that they saw it.

"It's not very often you're going to smash a Sydney to Hobart record and then get it taken away from you but you've got to take it on the chin, this one, and just get on with it."

Ty Oxley from fourth-placed InfoTrack said he felt for the Wild Oats XI crew.

"One hundred per cent, I've been in that position before when we won as Perpetual Loyal and we had to do the protest the next day so I completely understand what it's like," he said.

Comanche made 'very significant evasive action'

The near-miss happened when Wild Oats XI "failed to keep clear while tacking", according to jury chairman John Rountree.

Comanche owner and skipper Jim Cooney said his boat was forced to make "very significant evasive action" to avoid collision.

"We were sailing at right angles towards each other, a bit like two cars coming to an intersection. So there's a right of way car and a right of way boat," Mr Cooney told RN Breakfast.

"We hailed Wild Oats to tell them we were the right of way boat and the correct response on hearing that is for the give way boat to take an evasive action, whether that's going behind us or tacking out of our way."

Mr Cooney said he thought the one-hour penalty given to Wild Oats XI was fair, even though it was hard to see the calculation behind it.

"The amount of time involved with taking an evasive manoeuvre like that isn't the issue. You probably saw from the footage that both boats recovered within a few minutes and set about safely sailing the rest of the race," he said.

"We were delayed by four minutes or five minutes while recovering and set about following our proper course.

"You could extend that and say had we arrived in the Derwent five minutes earlier than we did, we may not have had the same wind conditions.

"A one-hour penalty in a 33-hour race as a percentage is not enormous, but its effect obviously is quite far-reaching."