Fang to put in Sydney Hobart appearance

by Di Pearson on 24 Dec 2004 Sailing sadly lost a famous yachtsman, racing rules expert, International judge and umpire in David ‘Fang’ Kilponen when he met with his untimely death in November last year.

‘Fang’, as he was known to the international sailing set, came to prominence as a navigator with an enviable record in maxi-boat racing; Fang was both loved and respected and most of all, we all enjoyed his sense of the ridiculous.

Most of us did not get to say goodbye to Fang, he left us as he came in; with a bang and in the USA where he had resided for some years. And he did it unexpectedly.

Come Boxing Day and the Rolex Sydney-Hobart race and Fang will be along for the ride.
How? You may ask.

Fang’s son Dallas, a photographer with Fairfax Limited, is racing to Hobart on the Volvo 60, Indec Merit, owned by Melbourne businessman, David Gotze – and with he, and the rest of the crew, go the ashes of Fang. Not as famous as the cricket ‘Ashes’ – but almost. Just ask any yachtie worth his deck shoes.

Debate about where and when to put Fang was rife amongst the punters. Originally, it was to be somewhere in the infamous Bass Strait, ‘but we decided Fang would hate being dumped there and he’d be really pissed off to find we had crossed the finish line and had a drink without him in Hobart,’ co-skipper and former owner of the boat, Ian Treleaven said today.

‘We thought we’d better take him over the finish line and have a drink on Constitution Dock with him before we bid him a final farewell,’ Treleaven added.

For son, Dallas, it was not a case of following his father into yachting, but more a case of giving it a go in his father’s name. This will be Kilponen’s first and possibly last Sydney-Hobart race, but he did do the Sydney-Mooloolaba and Sydney-Southport races on Indec.

Be interesting to see if Kilponen Jnr can tell jokes on the weather rail - the way his old man did. We will know the answer to that in a couple of days when the you know what hits the fan with 30 knots plus and storms expected from Tuesday.

Anyway, it’s the Aussies turn to say our farewells to Fang – the Yanks and a few Poms were fortunate enough to say their farewells to him in person – but we have him back where he belongs now – in Australian waters.