Sydney Hobart - She will need a Gale not a Zephyr

by Peter Campbell and Rob Kothe on 30 Dec 2009 Zephyr Hamilton Elevators sits second bottom of the alphabetical list of yachts entered for this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and as the smallest boat in the 100 boat fleet, should be amongst the tail enders into the River Derwent.

However, her co-owners Sydney-siders James Connell and Alex Brandon, two Laser sailors are confident the well-performed Farr 1020 will finish much better than that on handicap. Right now on Day 5 she is in fact leading the 2009 race overall on corrected handicap.

The stop start weather has benefited the smaller boats as they head down the Australian East Coast under spinnakers from Sydney Harbour towards Bass Strait, the near 200 nautical miles of often treacherous waters that divide mainland Australia and the island state of Tasmania.

Zephyr represents the historic Balmain Sailing Club in Sydney, founded in 1885 in an era of wonderfully over-canvassed open sailing skiffs. The club was reformed in 1995 and still hosts the annual Balmain Regatta in which many historical skiffs and classic yachts compete.

Connell and Brandon bought Zephyr in mid-2006 with one thing in mind – to contest the 2007 Rolex Sydney Hobart. 'We wanted a boat that was more competitive under IRC that my previous boat, a Northshore 340 and our investigations led us to the Farr 1020,' James Connell said today.

'Given the age of the boats (Zephyr was launched in 1984), it was difficult to find one in good condition, but there was a small fleet of them racing out of Sandringham Yacht Club in Victoria on a reasonably serious level.

'We bought Zephyr out of that fleet; the boat had undergone an $80k refit in 1998, which gave us a good base to work with, but we have still had to put a further $70k into it to get it ‘right’.'

Zephyr's debut ocean race was the 2007 Audi Sydney Southport where they finished second in their IRC Division, they went on to contest the Audi Sydney Gold Coast but were forced to retire with a broken backstay, then made another appearance in the 2009 Audi Sydney Gold Coast and finished third in their IRC Division.

Zephyr received a brand new mainsail as a Christmas present for her trip south for 2009 and she is using the best current data. Important when you are so relatively slow.

The CYCA’s records don’t show whether Zephyr is the first boat to represent Balmain Sailing Club in the Rolex Sydney Hobart, certainly no one at the Club seems to remember one before.

Right now Zephyr Hamilton Elevators is currently 62 miles from the Hobart finish line.

To win the 2009 race, she has to average almost seven knots and finish before 1:31 am on Thursday morning, a tall order unless the wind gods are right behind you.

But she is currently sailing at 8.6 knots and has been sailing at 8+ for the last two hours…so who knows how much rum James and Alex have been pouring on the water.

We will keep you posted.