Two people on separate yachts participating in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race have died after they were each struck by sail booms on the NSW coast.The first participant was on the Flying Fish Arctos and died just before midnight on Thursday.

The annual Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, which starts on Thursday, takes sailors on a 628-nautical mile race that exits Sydney Harbor and plunges south along the New South Wales coastline before crossing Bass Strait, rounding Tasman Island, crossing Tasmania’s Storm Bay and pushing up the River Derwent to Hobart.