Crew of LawConnect pose for a photo after winning the line honors in the Sydney to Hobart race. (AP)

SYDNEY, Dec 28, (AP): Champagne corks often pop, and loud, boisterous cheers are usually heard around Constitution Dock when the Sydney to Hobart line honors winner finishes in the Tasmanian state capital.

There were no such celebrations this year when defending champion LawConnect won the race in the early hours of Saturday morning, and with good reason: It came about 24 hours after two sailors died on separate boats in sail boom accidents two hours apart on a storm-ravaged first night of the race.

LawConnect, a 100-foot super maxi skippered by Australian tech millionaire Christian Beck, sailed up the River Derwent just after 2:30 a.m. Saturday. It had an elapsed time of 1 day, 13 hours, 35 minutes, and 13 seconds, for the 628-nautical mile (722 miles, 1,160 kilometers) race that began Thursday in Sydney harbor.

Celestial V70 finished second, about 2 1/2 hours behind LawConnect, and Wild Thing 100 was third, about 25 minutes behind Celestial. Of the 104 starters, 29 had retired at sea or in port.

LawConnect crew member Tony Mutter said celebrations would be held privately out of respect for the two sailors who died. He said crew members were informed of the deaths on the morning of day two after a busy night battling the same stormy seas that caused the fatal accidents.

"I didn’t hear it on the first night. I heard it in the early hours of the next morning,” Mutter told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. "We were pretty busy. We were 100% focused on the race. Our navigator knew, and he had to just pick the right moment to let us know.”

Mutter said the crew became "more somber” after being told about the deaths - "we were absolutely surprised and just felt for the other competitors.”

On Friday, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in Sydney, which administers the yacht race, said that one sailor each on entrants Flying Fish Arctos and Bowline was killed after being struck by the boom, a large horizontal pole at the bottom of the sail.

Later the dead sailors were identified as Roy Quaden 55, from Western Australia state, a crew member on Flying Fish Arctos, and 65-year-old Nick Smith of South Australia, who was on Bowline.

New South Wales police said both yachts had been seized for evidence for a likely coroner's inquest. The Cruising Yacht Club said it would hold its investigation.