Brotherly Love takes on a new meaning

by Ian Grant on 15 Apr 2003 Any mention about brotherly love will have a new meaning when Gold Coast brothers Ben and Michael Kelly go head to head for a special prize in the Multihull Yacht Club of Queensland Brisbane to Gladstone Race over the Easter holiday weekend.

The two young sailor’s former graduates from Sabot class racing on the Southport Broadwater will crew on different high performance catamarans for the honour of winning the prestigious Brisbane to Gladstone fastest time trophy.

Normally they crew together and when ever the opportunity arises to race as rivals it creates an atmosphere of friendly friction.

Ben the elder of the two and a senior sail maker at Horizon Sails Gold Coast loft is the more experienced multihull sailor having won numerous races and titles including the 2002 Hog’s Breath Race Week trophy with the Keith Glover skippered trimaran Trilogy.

He will be a key crew member onboard the Victorian Southern Ocean 50 catamaran Raw Nerve while Michael contesting his maiden Brisbane to Gladstone race will be an important part of the crew on the spray drenched trampoline of the Jamie Morris skippered Southport Yacht Club catamaran Flat Chat.

The ‘Kelly Gang’ deserves to take pride in what they have achieved from racing in a number of classes including match and one design now they will be looking to enter another important result in their personal log books.

Raw Nerve has won the Gladstone Race line honours title before while the speed sailing Flat Chat is the defending champion winning the ‘Grand Slam’ line and handicap with unmatched speed in a varied range of wind and sea conditions.

Flat Chat and Raw Nerve are radically different designs and this will be their first head to head clash for the honour of winning the major prize in Australia’s only official ocean race for multihull yachts.

The smaller and lighter Flat Chat has a very high power to weight ratio which naturally requires her crew to ‘back off’ when the seas become rough while Raw Nerve has the displacement weight to keep the power on.

Naturally with this advantage Raw Nerve will be a slight favourite if there is some real grunt in the breeze but Jamie Morris has proved to be a tenacious fighter and has beaten the odds before which is the reason why he has won more Gladstone Race Multihull line honours trophies than any other skipper.

He also has the race experience on how to avoid sailing into the rougher offshore conditions by sailing the fast lanes between the beach shore dump and the south flowing current offshore.

This elected course requires a lot more work in sail handling but the Flat Chat crew is prepared for it with extensive practice off the Gold Coast in recent weeks.


Flat Chat will contest the demanding 308 n/ml classic with a talented crew of four skipper Jamie Morris, Roger Overell and Shane Dickson who were in the 2002 race winning crew and Michael Kelly while Raw Nerve is expected to race with a crew of seven.

Morris is happy with his pre race preparation with Flat Chat logging some top speeds in special sail evaluation trials of the Gold Coast but he understands they have a real fight on their hands to retain the Gladstone Race title.

“Our race preparation has been impressive and I’m very happy with the speed but every thing has to step up another gear when you match race against a bigger catamaran in conditions that could give it the leading edge”.

“We have prepared for a tough race and they know Flat Chat will be in the thick of the action fighting all the way”. Morris said.

Both crews are so evenly matched that it is difficult to separate them which indicates the 2003 Multihull Brisbane to Gladstone race has the potential to be the most exciting ever staged in the history of the event.