Awestruck youngster becomes winning skipper

by Lisa Ratcliff on 28 Aug 2008
A group of old sailing mates from around the world have gathered this week at the Silver Jubilee Audi Hamilton Island Race Week to campaign the stunning Muir 66 Van Diemen III in its debut regatta.

While sailing dinghies as a youngster in Spring Bay on the Tasmanian east coast, Robbie Vaughan was awestruck when an impressive motor yacht called Van Diemen pulled into the Bay. He vowed then and there that should he own a boat one day, he’d call it Van Diemen and many decades later, he’s campaigning one of the best looking boats in the record 225 strong fleet.

Amongst Vaughan’s crew of nine is Tasmanian educated Charles Blundell, a professional boat delivery skipper better known as ‘Chas from Tas’, and Sydney based Michael ‘Zappa’ Bell and News Limited columnist Piers Ackerman, the ‘Minister for Diplomacy’ aboard the yacht.

‘Zappa’ met Vaughan and joined him as a crewmember aboard the ocean racer Charisma in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1974. The pair then crossed the Atlantic on that yacht and were part of the crew when Charisma represented America in the Admiral’s Cup in England in 1975. Audi Hamilton Island Race Week is the first time since then that Vaughan and Bell have sailed together.

The boat’s designer, Warren Muir, is aboard as is Dave Blair, the New Zealand boat builder who constructed the boat from Alaskan yellow and western red cedar at Matakana on the North Island of New Zealand.

The boat was launched in 2005 and went to California for 18 months, where expatriate Vaughan is now living, before returning to Tasmania via Hawaii. Following Audi Hamilton Island Race Week Van Diemen III will cruise to Tasmania for the summer then return to the Whitsundays next year before gearing up for the 2009 Rolex Sydney Hobart.

'At some stage we’ve got to do ‘the Hobart’ in order to complete the big three,' said Vaughan.

'Our long term plan is to cruise in Australia then after next year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart travel to the USA for the Newport Bermuda Race and contest the Rolex Fastnet Race.'

This is the boat’s first regatta and they are leading the Cruising With Spinnaker Division 1 pointscore series by 2.5 points. Racing finishes this Saturday.

Summing up the week so far, Vaughan says 'the racing conditions have been excellent with good competition in the cruising fleet, and we are meeting up with lots of old friends. It’s a very impressive scene and the Oatleys (Island owners) and Audi should be congratulated. This type of regatta doesn’t happen in the US.'

Most of the crew are sleeping on the boat, which is not as rough as it sounds given the boat is resplendent with Huon Pine spa bath, washer/drier and air con.

'On the fun metre so far this year’s Race Week has been right up there,' acknowledges Muir.

‘Chas from Tas’, who has 'been to the moon and back' with 22,000 nautical miles alone behind him since last year’s Audi Hamilton Island Race Week.

‘Chas’ is a revered member of the crew, not only for his extraordinary sailing ability but also for his story telling. More than three decades as a professional sailor and boat delivery skipper all over the world means ‘Chaz’ has an extensive library of legendary stories to re-tell, most of them based on misfortune.

His run of bad luck began in the mid 1960s when he was washed off a fishing boat called Truganini and spent 30 minutes in the ocean off the Tasmanian east coast mid-winter and in the middle of the night. 'That’s when I learnt to swim,' he chuckles.

He’s been shot at by pirates off Vietnam during a delivery from Hong Kong to Thailand, caught in a typhoon on a Chinese junk and rescued by a 70,000 tonner Italian bolt carrier and in the 1985 Fastnet he was on a boat called Drum that lost its keel and went belly up.

With those stories etched forever in his tanned face, ‘Chas’ will set off from Hamilton Island after Saturday’s closing race to resume his life of moving boats....until next year’s Audi Hamilton Island Race Week when Van Diemen III will return to the stunning playground of the Whitsunday Islands.