Nips n Tux aiming for Hobart Glory

by Gary Holt on 19 Dec 2001 Smart Masonery Nips N Tux, an X yacht 40, owned and skippered by Sydney plasticsSurgeon, Howard de Torres, will start as one of the favourites for IMS handicap honours in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, beginning on Boxing Day in Sydney Harbour.

Joining de Torres at the helm will be 44 year old Sydney-sider, Garry Holt. This will be Holt's fourteenth Sydney to Hobart Classic. Last year, aboard Shipping Central, Holt almost drowned coming into Hobart when the rudder broke, throwing him overboard whilst leading Handicap Honours convincingly. This year, he is out to avenge that defeat.

'This will be the third time that I have raced with Howard in the Sydney-Hobart,' Holt said today. 'I am looking forward to making up for the loss of last year. I am confident that we have assembled the crew to do so. I know we have the boat that can take us to the win.'

His propensity to fall off the boat is not lost on de Torres - 'Last year wasn't the first time that he has done it (fallen overboard). I think we will throw him overboard at the Heads and then pick him up, just so that he gets it out of his system before we hit Bass Strait!' He joked.

The crew is rightly confident in the ability of the boat. Smart Masonery Nips N Tux is a new yacht that was built in Denmark. Last year, with de Torres at the helm, it won the Sydney to Coffs Harbour event, and was scheduled to race in the Sydney-Hobart, but did not make the start. The crew recently finished third in the Sydney to Flinders Island race, and finished third in the British Trophy, a traditional lead up event to the Sydney-Hobart, won by Bumblebee 5.

Joining Holt, as helmsman on Smart Masonery Nips and Tux is Victorian Col Anderson, from Doyle's Sail Loft, the two being brought on for the longer races for their endurance race experience - Anderson with over 20 Sydney-Hobart's and a former America's Cup competitor. Both agree that they have the best seat in the house for the start - 'Many of Howard's clients, who have had breast enlargements, are members of the spectator floatilla, and when they see Smart Masonery Nips N Tux, they salute Howard by showing off his handiwork!' Anderson quipped.

Smart Masonery Nips N Tux won't have it all it's own way, though, with Shipping Central starting as one of the red hot favourites in the race, and with the crew eager to beat their former helmsman and pick up where they left off last year, the challenge will be tough.

Aside from sailing, Holt, the Managing Director of Eastern Creek International Karting Raceway in Sydney's West, drives a V8 Supercar in the Konica V8 Supercar Series, in 2002 upgrading to an AU Falcon. Although, on the surface, both sports couldn't be more diametrically opposed, upon closer examination, they are both very similar. Holt continues, 'For sure, both sports are very similar in application - the strategies that one must employ to be successful are very similar. Decisions when to make pit stops or passing manoeuvres could cost you a motor race - the same as predicting, wrongly, which way the winds go can cost you an ocean race, or in some cases, even your life.' This point is evidenced by several motor racing identities being successful in sailing as well, including Neville Crichton, Warwick Rooklyn and Will Hagon, just to name a few.

'Technologies, such as the space age materials being used, and the ever increasing use of GPS and digital computer technologies are drawing the sports closer together. In Europe, some sailing companies have forged alliances with Formula One teams in an effort to increase the effectiveness of their yachts in the water, along with the application of newer materials to sailing.'

It was Holt's motor racing ability in heavy weather that lead to him getting the ride on Smart Masonery Nips N Tux. 'We needed somebody who is a good steerer in the heavy weather that could get us through the rough seas,' observed de Torres. 'What better preparation for the storms in Bass Straight than driving a V8 Supercar in wet weather around Bathurst?' (Holt was seventh in the wet morning warm-up at this year's Bathurst 1000 in the oldest car in the field).

The former three-time Australian Skiing Champion and World Cup Down hiller has a long association with ocean racing. His company, Sportsmaster Programs, being Alan Bond's biggest sponsor of the Australia II Campaign in Rhode Island. At the time, Holt was quoted as saying that 'had we lost the race, we would have lost everything. But as history shows, we didn't lose.' The film produced as a result of the America's Cup campaign, Aussie Assault, was a worldwide smash hit, winning the International Sports Film Festival, at La Rochelle, France in 1985.

Smart Masonery, which is a revolutionary new, interlocking building system which is taking the country by storm, has come on board to support the effort at the last minute. This is the first major sponsorship that Smart Masonery has entered into, and thought what better way to boost the image of their product than being a part of one of Australia's sporting institutions.

Holt, along with the Smart Masonery Nips N Tux team, will greet the start gun at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia on Wednesday, December 26, aiming for Hobart Glory.