Rolex Sydney Hobart 2006 -a great race

by Peter Campbell on 1 Jan 2007 Wandering around the docks at Hobart last evening, along with thousands of other visitors and Hobartians out to celebrate New Year’s Eve, we watched and cheered the last boat to finish the Rolex Sydney Hobart, Gillawa, cross the finish line just before 8pm.

While the state-of-the-art super yacht Wild Oats XI failed to break the race record she set a year ago, Gillawa, a 26-year-old 30-footer skippered by David Kent from the Canberra Yacht Club, did set own personal record.

She completed the 628 nautical mile race in last place for the third consecutive year and in finishing before midnight on 31 December 2006 she recorded her fastest time for the ocean classic.

Canberra Yacht Club may also claim a record. Not only is Kent a member of the club on Lake Burley Griffin but also so is George Snow, the retired maxi yacht owner who sailed as ‘cook’ this aboard the Overall winner Love & War. His Brindabella has always proudly carried the sail number C1 although, of course, neither boat has never been closer to Canberra’s beautiful lake than the Tasman Sea Bateman’s Bay on the NSW South Coast.

George, about to fly back to Sydney to join his family as we landed at Hobart airport, was ‘over the moon’ with the victory of Love & War. ‘I’ve twice won line honours and a second on handicap, but never a handicap winner until now …winning line honours is great, but a handicap win is what it’s all about,’ he told Bruce Rowley, the Mittagong hotelier (he owns the ‘top pub’ in the Southern Highlands town) who was aboard the same flight as us to skipper Mirrabooka in the Boag’s Sailing South Race Week.

Later that evening my wife Sarah and my cousin Geri joined Bruce and co-owners Mike Wearne and Eddy Hidding aboard Mirrabooka for a New Year’s Eve drink. The trio bought the famous Tasmanian boat that the late John Bennetto sailed so many times in the Sydney Hobart Race in achieving his record 44 races – equalled in this 62nd race by Victorian Lou Abrahams.

It was a nostalgic visit to Mirrabooka for us Campbell’s. Geri’s father Alec, the last Anzac who died in 2002 aged 103, sailed with a much younger John Bennetto in their first Hobart race aboard Kintail in 1947. At the age of 100 or so, he went for his last sail on Mirrabooka with his old sailing mate.

Talking to yachties and Hobartians last evening, there is no doubt that the victory of Love & War could not have been more popular. It epitomises the concept that the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is a race for all…be they multi millionaires with professional crews on super maxis or the ordinary amateur yacht club members, mates who get together each year to ‘do a Hobart’ once more in a boat they have sailed on for years. Whether they win or not, it doesn’t really matter to many.

This year was a great test of seamanship, a tough first night at sea for many yachts and yachties and it took its toll on a number of boats. As George Snow said, the results showed that any boat sailed well, on the right day, in the right conditions, could win. It thinks it’s a good thing…it encourages everyone to stay in the fleet.'

Snow added: 'Multi-million dollar maxis come down and then they go, but they are not part of the regular sailing fleet. It’s important to have good, wholesome boats in the fleet.'

Come and go is right. Many locals were bitterly disappointed that Wild Oats XI disappeared back down the Derwent within a few hours of her taking line honours, as did most of her crew – by air.

The supermaxis will be back again but the victory of Love & War and the fine performances of placegetters Bacardi and Challenge, both from Victoria, will certainly encourage more of those ‘good, wholesome boats’ to enter for the 2007 Sydney Hobart. Bacardi is owned by John Williams and Graeme Ainley, immediate past President of Yachting Australia while the near 80-year-old Lou Abrahams skippered Challenge in what was his 44th Hobart Race, equalling the record of John Bennetto.

The 2006 Rolex Sydney Hobart fleet was one of great contrast, boats old and new, large and small; a few crewed by professionals but most sailed by amateurs in the true spirit of this great bluewater classic.

Underlining that contrast was the berthing in Hobart’s Kings Street marina – the gaff-rigged timber cutter Maluka, the smallest and oldest boat in the fleet, parked alongside Yendys, not the biggest but the newest grand prix racer in the fleet. Maluka, Australian designed and built; Yendys, American designed but built in China!

Both had competed in their first Sydney Hobart Race. Yendys won IRC Division C, Maluka placed fourth in IRC Division E. Overall, Yendys placed sixth, Maluka eighth. A fine result for both!