Charisma and coffee at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week

by Audi Hamilton Island Race Week on 24 Aug 2010 Sprinkled in amongst the Aussie entries dominating the impressive Audi Hamilton Island Race Week line up is a number of foreign campaigners, a handful from across the ditch and a few northern hemisphere registered boats including one that set off on an extended world cruise three years ago.

In 2007 the 1970 built Stephens-designed 57 footer Charisma left its yacht club of Real Club Náutico de Barcelona to complete a round the world cruise starting with the Rolex Fastnet Race that year followed by all the classic races including the Newport to Bermuda, the Transpac and the Rolex Sydney Hobart last December.

As part of their series of southern hemisphere stop-overs, Charisma has joined Audi Hamilton Island Race Week as the only Spanish entry on the starting list of 200 plus boats enjoying the Whitsunday Islands playground for this annual winter regatta which draws boats and sailors from around the globe.

Nine Spanish crew plus three Australians, including two Cruising Yacht Club of Australia Youth Sailing Academy sailors, are racing the forty year old S & S in IRC Passage division 1 and are currently fourth on the ladder at the half way mark of the regatta which wraps up this Saturday.

Rather than helming, the owner, venture capitalist Alejandro Perez Calzada, is the electronics boffin. For the boat’s first Race Week Calzada has opted to navigate the waters of the Whitsundays, the two metre tides, variable morning winds and tricky back eddies providing plenty of food for thought.

'Alejandro likes the currents and tidal movements and the strategies that go with them, he’s really into his electronics,' said mainsheet hand Frank Sticovich, who speaks fluent Spanish so was called upon to assist with communication when Charisma first arrived in Sydney last September and has stayed with the crew ever since.

Apart from the wonderful Spanish food Sticovich and the crew enjoy, he reckons the Espresso coffee machine is by far the best piece of equipment on the boat. 'The coffee machine goes all day when we are out racing; and a shot of Spanish brandy makes it taste that little bit better.'

Charisma was one of the first designs from the pen of Olin J. IOR Stephens, one half of the famous Sparkman and Stephens design duo. Built from aluminium by Palmer Johnson in 1970 in USA, the boat participated in the 1973 Admiral's Cup representing Team USA. In 2003 it was acquired by the current owner who restored the deck to original condition and optimised the boat’s performance with a new carbon fibre rig. Charisma’s schedule currently has them completing their world cruise in 2012 with the Ocean Regatta Buenos Aires however Sticovich says it’s likely the boat will continue on to the Caribbean and Mediterranean.

Other international entries contesting the 27th Audi Hamilton Island Race Week include New Zealand boats Farrago II, Wired and Jim Farmer’s latest Georgia, a modified TP52 making its Australian racing debut this week. Lang Walker’s superyacht Kokomo is a USA registered boat while the 49.80m luxury Perini Navi superyacht, Perseus, is registered as a UK boat.

Today crews at Audi Hamilton Island Race Week are enjoying a break in competition and the island’s many onshore offerings before it’s back to business tomorrow with windward/leeward racing for the Performance Racing and SB3s and an around the islands course for all other divisions.

Wednesday’s forecast is for 5-10 knots before a 15-20 knot south to south east change and Thursday should bring S/SE winds of 15-20 knots which means the on-water action is about to shift up a few gears following the light start to the week.