SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Skippers of 129 yachts set sail on a “bumpy” Sydney-Hobart ocean race Friday, with many to scatter rose petals for the Bondi Beach shooting victims as they venture into rolling seas.

On a cool, grey summer’s day at Sydney Harbour, crowds gathered around the shore or watched from scores of boats as a starting cannon set the fleet on its way for the race’s 80th edition.

LawConnect, one of five ultra-fast 100-foot supermaxis competing for line honors, led the fleet out of the habour just ahead of highly favoured supermaxi Comanche.

Crews can expect waves of up to four meters (13 feet) and 25-knot winds on the first day of the 628-nautical-mile race from Sydney to the Tasmanian capital Hobart, a meteorologist warned in a final weather briefing.

“It’s going to be cold. It’s going to be wet. It’s going to be bumpy,” race committee chairman Lee Goddard said ahead of the race.

“People are going to get seasick, and there will be incidents, and there probably will be injuries.”

But conditions at sea are expected to ease off later, the weather forecast indicated, as sailors race down the east coast before tackling the treacherous Bass Strait crossing to Tasmania.

In last year’s edition, two sailors died in separate incidents as gale-force winds and big seas pummeled the fleet.

This year, scores of sailors are paying a special tribute to those who died on 14 December when gunmen attacked a Jewish festival on Bondi Beach, killing 15 people and wounding scores more.

As yachts pass the beach, they are spreading rose petals on the ocean “out of respect for the tragic loss of life,” said Sam Haynes, commodore of race organiser the Cruising Yacht Club of Sydney.

Olympic swimming great Ian Thorpe is entering the Sydney-Hobart race for the first time aboard LawConnect, which is aiming to be first across the finish line for a third straight year.