"There's just zero common sense."

The organisers of the event, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, said they went through "due process" to consider the concerns of entrants but decided the rule limiting communications to marine radio signals "remained appropriate" and therefore "remains in place".

Witt said Scallywag would not return to the race in the future if they were affected by the rule. Despite all supermaxi skippers agreeing with his stance, Witt was not hopeful there would be a change to the decision at the 11th hour.

"I've never seen them change anything here in 20 years," Witt said.

Comanche skipper Jim Cooney said the decision to disallow satellite phones was disappointing.

"I think as much as the club has a contingency plan in place for if it's too smoky on the harbour on Boxing Day, atmospherics play a part in radio propagation and if that's likely to cause a problem then there ought to be a contingency," he said.

Wild Oat XI skipper Mark Richards said the call was a "big deal".

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"The rest of the world uses satellite phones for communication," he said. "It is such an expensive outlay for these owners, especially with people coming from overseas ... to have such a critical point of the race determined by one form of communication in today's world, it needs to be looked at."

Richards said stopping the reliance on marine radio signals during the Sydney to Hobart has been talked about "for years" but "nothing has ever happened".

"I think it's so important to keep these owners in the game, and you create a bad situation with these guys that doesn't sit well, it can turn people away from the event and that's not what we want to see."