Once-a-month sailors win Milson Memorial Cup

by Peter Campbell on 17 Feb 2006 Hugh Torode and the crew of his Beneteau First 31.7 Velocity are once-a-month offshore sailors – because they are all married with young families. Fortunately, last Saturday was a race day for them and they celebrated with their biggest win ever – taking out the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s prestigious Milson Memorial Cup off Sydney Heads.

After getting away with a good start they picked the right shifts on the windward leg to put the little boat in a great position against the higher rating boats, the likes of Brindabella, Loki, Infinity III, Vanguard, AAPT, Nips N Tux, AFR Midnight Rambler and Sirromet Lifestyle Wines.

First sailed for in 1931, the Milson Cup was donated to the Squadron in memory of a Past Commodore and 50 year member, Alfred G Milson, and is sailed each year over a short ocean course.

Many famous yachts have won the magnificent trophy, decided on Performance Handicaps, but Velocity is probably one of the lesser known winners and, indeed, one of the smallest. She's been regularly amongst the silverware at the Beneteau Point 7 Regattas and Beneteau Cup, but this is her biggest win to date.

‘I’ve owned Velocity for three years and I sail it about once a month with several good mates who, like me, have wives and young families,’ owner/skipper Hugh Torode, a gynaecologist, said this week.

The ‘good mates’ include a pathologist, a lawyer, a medical scientist and an ABC electrician….’our wives gave us a leave pass for last Saturday and we all went home delighted with the day,’ added Torode, a member of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. The next ‘leave pass’ is for two days to compete in the 2006 Sydney Regatta over the weekend of 4-5 March.

‘We were the smallest boat in the Milson Cup fleet but the light breeze was in our favour,’ he recalled.

Velocity won the Milson Memorial Cup by almost three minutes on PHS corrected time from Imagination (Annette & Robin Hawthorn) and Son of a Son (Pat Nash).

Velocity placed ninth in the IRC division, the winner being Julian Farren-Price in his Cookson 39 About Time from Cloud IX (Susan & Howard Piggott) and Black Adder (Stephen Thomas).

Originally from Geelong, where his father Keith Torode is a well known member of Royal Geelong Yacht Club, Hugh Torode went back to his home waters recently for the Skandia Geelong Week.

‘I took three of my crew down with me and we joined by brother Ian and sister Janet in sailing the Whiting 36 Blade Runner in the Scotchmans Hill Series…we had a real fun regatta, with a 6th in the last race our best result.’