Fatal Storm (34 page)

With a bone in her teeth the beautifully restored
Winston Churchill
makes an impressive sight under spinnaker. Her design is in direct contrast to
Sword of Orion
(above) which was badly damaged and also nearly lost.

The no-nonsense race yacht
Kingurra
has survived the worst that 13 previous Hobart races could deliver. This yacht became the centre of one of the most amazing man-overboard rescues in the history of offshore racing.

Wayne Millar’s
B-52
was one of the favourites for top honours in the Channel Handicap division. Around the same time the next day this yacht was upside down for four minutes in mountainous seas with seven crew trapped inside and two crew outside clinging to the upturned hull.

Zeus II
, the race’s smallest entry, won the classic in 1981. Not even this tough little yacht could survive the wrath of the storm.

High speed running under spinnaker was a feature of
Team Jaguar’s
effort early in the race. But for the second consecutive year this yacht would lose its mast – this time becoming the focus of a major search and rescue effort in the early stages of the storm.

Canon Maris
, sailed by “Mr. Clean-up-the-World” Ian Kiernan, was originally owned by one of the race’s founders, Jack Earl. One of the crew, Jonathan Gibson, was the son of John “Gibbo” Gibson, who survived 30 hours in a wrecked life raft after
Winston Churchill
sank.

VC Offshore Stand Aside
was the first yacht to be claimed by the storm. It was a miracle that this crew survived.

Foxtel-Titan Ford
enjoying the best part of the race – the stretch up the Derwent River to the finish. It was so far offshore when the storm struck that it had to keep going.

The start of the storm.
Brindabella
begins to smoke its way across Bass Strait under considerably reduced sail.

One of the best known names in the world of ocean racing,
Ragamuffin
, skippered by 30-year race veteran Syd Fischer. It was déjà-vu for Fischer who also survived the calamitous 1979 Fastnet Race in England.

Nowhere to hide.
Aspect Computing
, crewed by disabled sailors, probably provided the race’s most remarkable result. They survived the storm and went on to win their division. This, and other remarkable photos in this section were taken by Richard Bennett and his daughter, Alice.