Rolex Sydney Hobart – Secret Men’s Business 3.5 Overall winner

by Rob Kothe and the Sail-World Team on 30 Dec 2010 Rolex Sydney Hobart 2010 Overall Handicap winner.

South Australian Geoff Boettcher has sailed his Reichel Pugh Secret Mens Business 3.5 to victory, winning the Tattersall’s Cup in his 22nd attempt.

Overnight the three boats most likely to finish with a better corrected time faded away. Darryl Hodgkinson's Beneteau 45 Victoire finsihed more than two hours off the pace and Anthony Paterson and the Tow Truck boys aboard L’Altra Donna have stalled along with Peter Mosley’s Sydney 36 Local Hero.

So while our call is completely unofficial its clear that Secret Men's Business 3.5 is the Tattersall’s Cup winner in 2010.

Boettcher, an Adelaide supermarket owner has been racing on the east coast circuit for more than two decades. His first Secret Mens Business, a Murray 43 is still circulating, sailing in this Hobart race.

His Secret Mens Business II was badly structurally damaged in a heavy prestart Race 1 at Hamilton Island Race Week in 2008 and then on the trip back the truck was involved in an accident and the mast and rigging was written off.

Secret Mens Business 3, his new Reichel-Pugh 52 which appeared a year later was slow, so he went back to drawing board and came back with a re-work, hence the 3.5, and this boat has been quick all year as his strong win in the hard fought Audi Victoria Week 2010 showed.

We talked to Geoff soon after he finished yesterday and again this morning.

‘We’ve had 22 Hobart starts, always say starts. My crew used to call me the Mayor of Eden; we’d retired there so many times over the years. The guys used to joke about making a motel booking there in advance.

‘But we’ve been going much better in recent years and on Boxing Day this year my navigator Steve Kemp said 'We don’t have an Eden Travelodge booking this year- we are just going to have to keep going.'

‘Seriously, we have a really strong team with us and we sailed confidently all the way in a very tough race. The guys were fantastic. It was such a great crew.

‘The first night was very hard work. The winds clocked 50 knots with choppy seas, not like some of the classic races. We just found it horrendous, as the number of boats who pulled out later proved.

‘We had our share of problems on the second night too. On that second night Caillin Howard, our mast man, was one of three guys dropping our headsail. He was just lifted straight off the bow in green water into the drink, still tethered and we got him back in, but it was hard work in those seas getting him in, it took five crew to get him on deck.

‘He was pretty hurt and he was full of salt water. We initially thought he had crushed a couple of ribs. Even though we smile about it now it was quite a dangerous thing at the time.

‘We drove the boat hard. We kept to our original pre-start plan, we worked hard predicting the weather and the guys worked hard driving to what we predicted.

‘We just matched the game plan with a little bit of error correction because the wind didn´t come through quite on time as predicted but our preparation was the key.

‘We made some big gains on the second night and that set the race up for us.

‘We just picked a path, it was all heavy duty gain, we came in when some of the other boats stayed wider and we just got a little bit of current.

‘From Tasman Island we had every bit of wind condition you could dream of.

‘There were four or five boats that, we thought, could knock us off quite easily.

‘We figured with our luck they will just scream up with a great breeze behind them and come straight in, which is what normally happens to us unlucky blokes.

‘Yesterday I said to the guys as we were coming to the finish line 'we don’t know if we have won anything but we’ve sailed the best we could.'

‘To wake up and look at the standings this morning and see how the weather treated the other boats is amazing. It feels great, after all these tries. My first trip south in my own boat was in 1993. So its been a long time coming. It’s going to be quite a day.’

'This year, I asked Michael Dunstan, with Julian Freeman and Kempie to put a crew together who could win Hobart. I am just grateful they included my name.'

The winning crew was Geoff Boettcher (21) A Common (2), Caillin Howard (4), J Clark (2), Julian Freeman (12), Michael Dunstan (7), T Cowen (7), Steve Kemp (11), J Paterson (2), Nick Cleary (5), Simon Cunnington (4), Andrew Hutchinson (4), Euan McNicol (5) Declan Brennan (9).

David Oliver who has been an integral part of the crew for the last five years, was injured in a twilight sail midlast week and was unable to sail south. However he was on the Derwent to see the boat come in yesterday.

Sail-World.com will provide more detail during the morning.

Standings At racetime 03:18:20 - 30 December 2010, 7:20am

EST. ELAPSED EST. CORR. YACHT NAME DIV LAT LONG DTG SOG COG TIME & SPEED H'CAP TIME & SPEED

IRC Overall

1 Secret Men's Business 3.5 1 Finished 03:00:42:10 8.6 1.341 04:01:29:40 6.4
Geoff Boettcher (21) SA 29 Dec, 1:42pm

2 Jazz 0 Finished 03:00:20:19 8.7 1.356 04:02:05:28 6.4
Chris Bull (3) NSW 29 Dec, 1:20pm

3 Shogun 1 Finished 03:00:18:54 8.7 1.357 04:02:07:53 6.4
Rob Hanna (4) VIC 29 Dec, 1:18pm

4 Pretty Fly III 0 Finished 03:00:33:18 8.7 1.362 04:02:49:12 6.4
Colin Woods (4) NSW 29 Dec, 1:33pm

5 Victoire 2 Finished 03:15:41:40 7.2 1.13 04:03:05:41 6.3
Darryl Hodgkinson NSW 30 Dec, 4:41am

6 Rodd & Gunn Wedgetail 1 Finished 02:23:44:50 8.8 1.402 04:04:35:23 6.2
Bill Wild (6) QLD 29 Dec, 12:44pm

7 Living Doll 1 Finished 03:00:18:35 8.7 1.395 04:04:52:19 6.2
Michael Hiatt (5) VIC 29 Dec, 1:18pm

8 Ran 1 Finished 02:17:22:55 9.6 1.563 04:06:11:31 6.1
Niklas Zennstrom (1) England 29 Dec, 6:22am

9 Vamp 2 Finished 03:08:36:59 7.8 1.269 04:06:18:08 6.1
Mikhail Muratov/Roger Hickman (33) Russia 29 Dec, 9:36pm

10 Chutzpah 2 Finished 03:13:03:30 7.4 1.209 04:06:50:08 6.1
Bruce Taylor (29) VIC 30 Dec, 2:03am

11 AFR Midnight Rambler 2 Finished 03:17:04:53 7.1 1.157 04:07:04:02 6.1
Ed Psaltis (29) NSW 30 Dec, 6:04am

12 Ray White Spirit of Koomooloo 4 42° 46' S 148° 10' E 70.5 7.0 188 04:04:44:35 6.2 1.027 04:07:27:47 6.1
Mike Freebairn (7) QLD 7nm S of Maria Island 30 Dec, 5:44pm
Time to Win 03:22:55:51 30 Dec, 11:55am

13 Terra Firma 1 Finished 03:07:27:42 7.9 1.307 04:07:51:23 6.0
Nicholas Bartels (7) VIC 29 Dec, 8:27pm

14 Lahana 0 Finished 02:14:09:44 10.1 1.674 04:08:03:34 6.0
Peter Millard (1) NSW 29 Dec, 3:09am

15 Limit 1 Finished 02:21:30:31 9.0 1.499 04:08:11:36 6.0
Alan Brierty (7) WA 29 Dec, 10:30am

16 L'Altra Donna 4 43° 05' S 148° 08' E 51.8 7.0 176 04:02:06:28 6.4 1.063 04:08:17:19 6.0
Andy Kearnan NSW 11nm NE of Tasman Island 30 Dec, 3:06pm
Time to Win 03:19:42:57 30 Dec, 8:42am

17 Loki 1 Finished 02:21:33:16 9.0 1.5 04:08:19:54 6.0
Stephen Ainsworth (13) NSW 29 Dec, 10:33am

18 Ichi Ban 0 Finished 02:16:52:55 9.7 1.611 04:08:31:29 6.0
Matt Allen (21) NSW 29 Dec, 5:52am

19 Paca 3 43° 14' S 147° 58' E 38.6 5.4 296 04:00:37:28 6.5 1.085 04:08:50:15 6.0
Philippe Mengual (1) NSW 2nm W of Tasman Island 30 Dec, 1:37pm

20 Copernicus 3 43° 06' S 148° 05' E 49.8 5.4 184 04:02:02:03 6.4 1.073 04:09:11:26 6.0
Greg Zyner (3) NSW 9nm NE of Tasman Island 30 Dec, 3:02pm
Time to Win 03:18:51:40 30 Dec, 7:51am

21 Extasea 2 Finished 03:15:44:39 7.2 1.202 04:09:28:07 6.0
Paul Buchholz VIC 30 Dec, 4:44am

22 L'Ange De Milon 3 43° 08' S 148° 05' E 47.4 3.2 216 04:01:28:13 6.4 1.086 04:09:51:10 5.9
Jacques Pelletier France 7nm NE of Tasman Island 30 Dec, 2:28pm

23 Titania of Cowes 2 Finished 03:12:11:29 7.5 1.264 04:10:25:04 5.9
Richard Dobbs United Kingdom 30 Dec, 1:11am

24 Eleni 3 43° 15' S 148° 02' E 41.3 2.7 196 04:00:41:03 6.5 1.105 04:10:50:10 5.9
Tony Levett (6) NSW 1nm E of Tasman Island 30 Dec, 1:41pm

25 Wild Oats XI 0 Finished 02:07:37:20 11.3 1.925 04:11:04:22 5.9
Bob Oatley NSW 28 Dec, 8:37pm

26 Ragamuffin 1 Finished 03:07:43:15 7.9 1.344 04:11:08:41 5.9
Syd Fischer (41) NSW 29 Dec, 8:43pm

27 Patriot 3 43° 16' S 147° 49' E 32.5 4.9 324 04:00:01:08 6.5 1.118 04:11:20:57 5.9
Tony Love (5) QLD 1nm SE of Cape Raoul 30 Dec, 1:01pm

28 Zen 3 43° 09' S 148° 04' E 47.3 4.3 200 04:01:37:10 6.4 1.106 04:11:58:02 5.8
Gordon Ketelbey (7) NSW 7nm NE of Tasman Island 30 Dec, 2:37pm

29 Another Challenge 3 43° 12' S 148° 02' E 43.0 7.6 184 04:01:00:40 6.5 1.114 04:12:04:13 5.8
Chris Lewin(3) VIC 2nm NE of Tasman Island 30 Dec, 2:00pm

30 Patrice Six 2 43° 16' S 147° 49' E 32.6 4.9 324 04:00:09:46 6.5 1.125 04:12:10:59 5.8
Tony Kirby (25) NSW 1nm SE of Cape Raoul 30 Dec, 1:09pm

31 Shepherd Centre 4 42° 40' S 148° 18' E 77.3 8.1 208 04:06:21:07 6.1 1.066 04:13:06:26 5.8
Hugh Torode (1) NSW 6nm E of Maria Island 30 Dec, 7:21pm
Time to Win 03:19:27:28 30 Dec, 8:27am

32 Ocean Affinity 2 Finished 03:15:42:52 7.2 1.253 04:13:54:22 5.7
Stewart Lewis (3) QLD 30 Dec, 4:42am

33 Chancellor 3 42° 40' S 148° 18' E 77.7 7.6 208 04:06:20:28 6.1 1.078 04:14:19:25 5.7
Ted Tooher (5) NSW 6nm E of Maria Island 30 Dec, 7:20pm

34 Local Hero 4 42° 47' S 148° 20' E 71.9 04:08:47:36 6.0 1.056 04:14:39:42 5.7
Peter Mosely NSW 11nm SE of Maria Island 30 Dec, 9:47pm
Time to Win 03:20:19:26 30 Dec, 9:19am

35 Cadibarra 8 2 43° 01' S 147° 24' E 7.8 5.9 340 03:19:53:32 6.8 1.214 04:15:33:26 5.6
Paul Roberts (7) VIC 3nm N of Iron Pot 30 Dec, 8:53am

36 Geomatic Joker 3 42° 44' S 148° 19' E 73.8 4.9 200 04:06:13:28 6.1 1.093 04:15:43:53 5.6
Grant Chipperfield (1) VIC 8nm SE of Maria Island 30 Dec, 7:13pm

37 St Jude 2 43° 15' S 147° 45' E 29.9 7.6 240 03:23:28:14 6.6 1.179 04:16:33:35 5.6
Noel Cornish (3) NSW 2nm W of Cape Raoul 30 Dec, 12:28pm

38 Investec LOYAL 0 Finished 02:11:11:34 10.6 1.909 04:16:59:56 5.6
Sean Langman (19) NSW 29 Dec, 12:11am

39 Tevake II 2 43° 15' S 147° 54' E 36.0 6.5 332 04:00:12:15 6.5 1.186 04:18:05:53 5.5
Angus Fletcher (1) VIC 4nm W of Tasman Island 30 Dec, 1:12pm

40 Secret Men's Business #1 2 42° 56' S 148° 11' E 60.5 7.0 200 04:02:50:16 6.4 1.158 04:18:27:15 5.5
Ross Trembath (13), Rob Curtis (4) NSW 17nm S of Maria Island 30 Dec, 3:50pm

41 Dawn Star 4 41° 40' S 148° 32' E 137.7 7.0 244 04:17:37:59 5.5 1.023 04:20:14:48 5.4
William Hubbard III USA 24nm S of St Helens Point 31 Dec, 6:37am
Time to Win 03:23:18:07 30 Dec, 12:18pm

42 Allegro 4 42° 10' S 149° 03' E 119.9 5.4 172 04:18:18:28 5.5 1.019 04:20:28:47 5.4
John Taylor (15) NSW 33nm E of Cape Sonnerat 31 Dec, 7:18am
Time to Win 03:23:40:34 30 Dec, 12:40pm

43 Crossbow 4 41° 39' S 149° 14' E 150.2 04:18:32:33 5.5 1.025 04:21:24:22 5.4
David Stenhouse (1) & David Cutcliffe (5) NSW 45nm SE of St Helens Point 31 Dec, 7:32am
Time to Win 03:23:06:58 30 Dec, 12:06pm

44 Charlie's Dream 4 41° 07' S 148° 49' E 173.1 6.5 212 04:20:24:38 5.4 1.015 04:22:09:24 5.3
Peter Lewis (2) QLD 23nm E of Eddystone Pt 31 Dec, 9:24am
Time to Win 04:00:03:12 30 Dec, 1:03pm

45 Aurora 4 42° 00' S 148° 24' E 117.6 5.9 172 04:18:11:50 5.5 1.048 04:23:40:43 5.2
Jim Holley (22) NSW 21nm N of Cape Sonnerat 31 Dec, 7:11am
Time to Win 03:21:01:43 30 Dec, 10:01am

46 Illusion 4 41° 14' S 149° 15' E 173.0 5.4 240 05:00:43:16 5.2 0.996 05:00:14:18 5.2
Jonathan Stone NSW 40nm E of St Helens Point 31 Dec, 1:43pm
Time to Win 04:01:53:08 30 Dec, 2:53pm

47 Wild Thing 0 Finished 02:17:15:29 9.6 1.848 05:00:35:49 5.2
Grant Wharington (23) VIC 29 Dec, 6:15am

48 Wahoo 4 41° 36' S 149° 03' E 149.6 6.5 228 04:20:52:37 5.4 1.034 05:00:51:03 5.2
Graham Mulligan NSW 37nm SE of St Helens Point 31 Dec, 9:52am
Time to Win 03:22:17:18 30 Dec, 11:17am

49 She's The Culprit 2 42° 44' S 148° 19' E 74.4 5.9 179 04:11:47:24 5.8 1.138 05:02:39:54 5.1
Todd Leary (2) TAS 8nm SE of Maria Island 31 Dec, 12:47am

50 Blunderbuss 4 42° 00' S 148° 43' E 121.8 6.5 168 04:20:25:05 5.4 1.067 05:04:13:05 5.1
Tony Kinsman QLD 27nm NE of Cape Sonnerat 31 Dec, 9:25am
Time to Win 03:19:22:20 30 Dec, 8:22am

51 Wave Sweeper 4 40° 50' S 149° 49' E 206.2 7.0 212 05:00:34:42 5.2 1.06 05:07:48:47 4.9
Morgan Rogers (2) NSW 67nm E of Eddystone Pt 31 Dec, 1:34pm
Time to Win 03:19:58:32 30 Dec, 8:58am

52 Mille Sabords 3 41° 32' S 148° 42' E 147.6 6.5 236 04:20:52:28 5.4 1.109 05:09:36:50 4.8
Stephane Howarth VIC 22nm SE of St Helens Point 31 Dec, 9:52am

53 Young Ones 3 41° 03' S 149° 45' E 193.3 6.5 232 05:04:41:58 5.0 1.072 05:13:40:40 4.7
Ian Miller (2) VIC 64nm E of Eddystone Pt 31 Dec, 5:41pm
Time to Win 03:18:56:45 30 Dec, 7:56am

Alchemy III* 3 Retired - at Port
Jarrod Ritchie TAS

Bacardi* 4 Retired - at Port
Martin Power (8) VIC

Calm* 1 Retired - at Port
Jason Van der Slot (5) VIC

Exile* 2 Retired - at Port
Rob Reynolds (1) NSW

Jazz Player* 2 Retired - at Port
Andrew Lawrence (1) VIC

Nautical Circle* 3 Retired - at Port
Matthew Prentice (1) NSW

Pirelli Celestial* 2 Retired - at Port
Sam Haynes NSW

Salona II* 2 Retired - at Port
Phillip King (13) NSW

Scarlet Runner* 1 Retired - at Port
Robert Date (2) VIC

Shamrock* 2 Retired - at Port
Tony Donnellan (1) VIC

Shining Sea* 3 Retired - at Sea
Andrew Corletto (1) SA

Swish* 3 Retired - at Port
Steven Proud (3) NSW

Two True* 3 Retired - at Port
Andrew Saies (5) SA

Wot Eva* 1 Retired - at Port
David Pescud (19) NSW

Yuuzoo* 0 Retired - at Port
Ludde Ingvall (7) NSW

Notes:

Alchemy III - boom damage
Bacardi - broken mast
Calm - Retired
Exile - steering damage
Jazz Player - damaged mainsail
Nautical Circle - Engine problems
Pirelli Celestial - Sail damage
Salona II - Steering Problems
Scarlet Runner - Sail damage
Shamrock - damage to rudder bearing -
Shining Sea - Broken Rudder - Heading Triabunna
Swish - radio damage - heading to Sydney
Two True - Engine problems
Wot Eva - engine problem
Yuuzoo - torn headsail