Sailors and runners face endurance test - Three Peaks race

by Peter Campbell on 28 Mar 2002 Offshore racing sailors and endurance runners will join forces tomorrow to contest the nation's most unique and demanding event, the Bass Link Australian Three Peaks Race around the coast of the island State of Tasmania.

The race, in which a mixed fleet of 15 yachts will sail some 320 nautical miles and their running teams cover 133 kilometres, including three mountain climbs, starts from Beauty Point on the Tamar River at 2pm tomorrow, Good Friday.

Each yacht in the racing division carries three sailors and two long distance endurance runners, but yachts in the cruising division may carry extra crew, competing for the Tilman Trophy.

Described as Tasmania's equivalent to the start of the Sydney to Hobart Race, the start has become a major annual festival on Inspection Head wharf at Beauty Point, originally built at the height of the Tamar Valley's apple exporting trade.

More than 10,000 people pack the wharf and advantage points along the river and many spectator boats follow the fleet to Low Head at the mouth of the Tamar, with Sir Guy Green, Governor of Tasmania and Patron of the Three Peaks Race, firing the starting cannon.

Sir Guy and Lady Green later tomorrow will fly to Lady Barron on Flinders Island to greet the yachts after their first 90 nautical mile leg across south-eastern Bass Strait, then following the progress of the running teams on the first and longest cross-country leg of 65km. This includes climbing to the granite peak of Mt Strzelecki.

From Lady Barron the yachts then sail down the Tasmanian East Coast to Coles Bay, a distance of 127 nautical miles, from where the runners dash 33 nautical miles through the magnificent Freycinet National Park to Mt Freycinet.

The final leg is from Coles Bay to Hobart, where teams have the choice of sailing around Tasman Island or taking a short-cut through the Denistone Canal at Dunalley, a sometimes risky choice due to tides and sand banks.

Once the yachts berth at Hobart's historic Sullivan's Bay the running teams, sometimes replaced by sailors, face a final dash to the peak of Mt Wellington, towering above the city, an up and down run of 35km.

Based on the British Three Peaks Race, the Tasmanian event will be the 14th, with Sir Guy Green describing it as 'a unique combination of teamwork and individual effort…I know of no other event which involves sailing, cycling, rowing or drifting a yacht to all points of the compass through six or seven distinct bodies of water carrying people who run over three marathons in as many days.'

Sir Guy's reference to cycling and rowing are the special rules that allow boats in light winds or drifters to use Heath Robinson-like contractions made from bicycle frames to power long propeller shafts fitted to the transoms or to row their yachts with surfboat oars.

Defending their victory of last year are Tasmanian pharmacist Terry Travers and Queensland multi-hull yacht designer Robin Chamberlin with their Chamberlin 38 catamaran, API Mersey Pharmacy, one of two multis in the fleet.

Travers and Chamberlin are very experienced multihull sailors, their achievements including sailing this catamaran to the Antarctic in January/February 1999 and winning the Australian Three Peaks Race last year in the record time of 2 days 8 hours 16 minutes 35 seconds.

The fleet, two more than last year, includes several newcomers, including Bohemian Rhapsody, an H28 cruising ketch from Geelong, skippered by Matthew Gogarty with a Victorian team of sailors and runners.

Also new are the well-sailed Mumm 36, Suicide Blonde, with a Hobart team skippered by James Polson, and the Roberts 38, Crotty Dental, skippered by James Crotty, also from Hobart.

The Edmunds brothers from Sidmouth in the Tamar Valley, supporters and competitors in the Australian Three Peaks Race since its inception, are back again, with sons in their crew.

Richard Edmunds is sailing in the Cruising division with his Radford 14, Hydro Wind Power, taking with him a crew of 10, including several sailing in their first event.

His brother, Nick, is skippering Haphazard, also a Radford 14, with sons Ross and Sam in the crew, competing in the Racing division. Haphazard has twice won the Three Peaks Race.

The fleet includes yachts and crew from Hobart, Ulverstone, Devonport, Beauty Point and Launceston in Tasmania as well as from Victoria and Queensland.

With a fresh southerly change predicted for north-eastern Tasmanian waters, the fleet could make record dash from the Tamar River to Flinders Island, with fast running conditions favouring the two catamarans, API Mersey Pharmacy and Austchoice, another Chamberlin design, but a 30-footer.

Further information: Peter Campbell - 0419 385 028