Fatal Storm (5 page)

Roger Hickman, a highly experienced offshore racer and race veteran, sees the appeal of ocean racing in general, and the Hobart race in particular, this way: “Ocean racing takes place in the stadium of life. It’s not as though you’re inside some artificially heated and lit stadium. It’s got all the features of ‘why do people climb Mount Everest’. It’s something you just have to do. There is this wonderful challenge to complete the race and be safe. Thrown in with this is the most romantic environment in the world. You get all the benefits of the wind, the sea, the sun, the moon and the stars plus the spectacle of marine life. It’s all rolled into something that is competitive. It’s the absolute classic situation where man, or woman, is pitted against the elements.

“It is certainly an ‘on-the-edge’ sport like skydiving, motor racing, football and so many others. You cannot be under the illusion at any time that it is safe. Like any other ‘on-the-edge’ sport, ocean racing can be extremely dangerous. That is an aspect we all accept. Unbridled dangers have always been a vital part of life. Ocean racing delivers those dangers plus moments of beauty that will be with you for the rest of your life.”

While Mother Nature will always create the rules and decide the result, it’s the competitors, the camaraderie, the teamwork and the stamina which make the race what
it is. For some sailors, like Sydney’s Richard “Sightie” Hammond, you cannot get enough of the Sydney to Hobart. The 1998 race was his 40th start. A record. For him and so many others, Christmas Day is more like Boxing Day eve – the eve of the start of the Hobart. Hammond has a host of Hobart race stories, but the one he recalls with the most clarity is his first race in 1952. It was baptism by fire – or more specifically, ice. He was aboard the aging Tasman schooner
Wanderer
that year and he remembers that both the yacht and its owner, Eric Massey, were very old.

“I went for the adventure. To race to Hobart was something just about every young sailor wanted to do. I was one of the lucky few to secure a ride.”

Hammond thought his initiation was complete when a howling southerly buster with winds gusting up to 40 knots swept across the fleet off the NSW south coast. Massey considered the conditions to be so bad at the height of the storm that he ordered that the yacht ride it out with all sails lowered.

Worse was to come.

First it was torment.
Wanderer
had made such slow progress south that on New Year’s Eve it was caught in a windless hole just off the coast at St Helens, near the north-east corner of Tasmania. The crew could only listen to the celebrations on shore. The torment turned to torture soon after
Wanderer
entered the appropriately named Storm Bay and was blasted by a wild sou’westerly gale.

“It was blowing 60 knots, the seas were raging and the spray was near horizontal,” Hammond said. “To say it was bitterly cold was an understatement – there was bloody ice on the mast. Without doubt it was the most memorable Hobart race I have ever done, partly because it was my first and partly because it was so rugged and cold.”

It wasn’t enough to turn Hammond away from the sport. He went on to become one of Australia’s best ocean racing navigators – hence the nickname “Sightie” because in the old days he was always taking sun sights with his sextant.

Another yachtsman who wasn’t deterred from going back to the Hobart race after a horrific experience was Sydneysider Jim McLaren. In 1956 he competed for the second time, on this occasion aboard his own yacht, the 30-footer
Vailima
, a tiny double-ended yacht that had been built by its original owner in a suburban backyard. According to McLaren, it was a race in which “not much happened”. For most sailors it would have been a race where plenty happened. “We had a southerly when we cleared Sydney Heads, another southerly change off the NSW south coast then a third, a beauty, as we entered Bass Strait. Three bloody fronts before we got to halfway.

“The last one was from the south west. The wind got to 86 knots – bloody hard. I don’t think the seas were as big as what they experienced in the 1998 race, but the same wind and rain were certainly there. You couldn’t sail in it. We had to go down to bare poles. We did manage to set the sea anchor but it took only one big wave to break the rope attached to it. The same wave took out the forward hatch. After that we could only run with it. We felt like we were heading for New Zealand. I was getting a bit worried because we could only hang on and hope. We were like that for 24 hours.”

McLaren and his crew set sail again and eventually crossed Bass Strait unscathed. Then, off Tasmania’s east coast they suffered the indignity of having the wind evaporate completely. Finally they reached Hobart – almost eight days after leaving Sydney. But they weren’t last to finish. Another entry, P. S. Parry’s
Renene
, took almost 10 days. McLaren declared he would never race south again.

He finished up building his own yacht and competing in four more. His love of the sea spread to his children. In June 1988, his daughter, Kay Cottee, became the first woman to sail single-handed, non-stop and unassisted around the world.

The Sydney to Hobart has attracted a vast cross-section of competitors over its long history. It has fascinated a Prime Minister and a Premier, numerous media magnates, millionaires and billionaires and countless average “Joes” from Struggle Street. Edward Heath, who was later to become Britain’s Prime Minister, won the race in 1969 with his 34-foot sloop
Morning Cloud.
Heath thought it was appropriate that on the 25th anniversary of Illingworth’s victory, another “Brit” had taken the honours. Three years later, high profile American media man Ted Turner posted a rare double in being both first to finish and then being awarded outright victory – the corrected time, or handicap, trophy.

Rupert Murdoch competed with his own yacht,
Ilina
, in the early sixties but would have to wait until 1995 before he experienced the thrill of victory. He was aboard the sleek, white-hulled maxi
Sayonara
owned by friend and business associate Larry Ellison, head of the Oracle computer software company. Murdoch’s son Lachlan was to be aboard the same yacht for the 1998 race.

While an addiction for some, the Sydney to Hobart has cured many sailors of the desire to ocean race. There is of course only one certain cure for seasickness – sitting under a tree!

The 1998 race was the 34th pilgrimage south for 74-year-old Sydneysider Don Mickleborough. Surprisingly,
when asked why so many people kept going back, he had trouble answering. “I’m buggered if I know why we keep doing it,” said this carefree man with a permanent grin on his face. “I guess it’s the camaraderie. It’s just that you are out there with your friends. You face the best and the worst of the conditions and have to work hard to get through. I suppose if I couldn’t sail to Hobart with my mates I wouldn’t bother going.” Then, after pondering the question a little longer, “OK. Yes. It’s the parties. Sure the race is there as a race. But it also gets you from one good party to an even better one.”

One party stands out in the memories of many. It was back in 1962 when the Sydney to Hobart really went international for the first time. Wealthy New York ship broker, Sumner A. “Huey” Long, had brought over what was then the world’s ultimate racing yacht,
Ondine
, to challenge Australia’s best. It was a truly exceptional piece of boat building possessing a unique aluminium hull painted pale blue. It was dubbed the “Yankee yawl”. Huey Long was justifiably confident.

But much to his dismay, and to the surprise of almost all observers,
Ondine
didn’t get it all her own way. It was only when the big Sydney schooner,
Astor
, had her billowing spinnaker deflate after the massive wooden spinnaker pole that was holding it aloft splintered, that Long managed to bring his state-of-the-art yacht from behind to win. He made it home by just 100 yards. It was a sweet victory indeed for Long because
Ondine
also established a new mark for the 630-mile course – three days, three hours, 46 minutes and 16 seconds. But Long’s hope for the double victory went as limp as
Astor
’s spinnaker when Vic Meyer’s powerful steel racer,
Solo
, sailed in and claimed the ultimate handicap trophy – the prize for having the best corrected time for the course.

Long was not happy. He was certain
Solo
had broken race rules. He flew to Launceston in northern Tasmania seeking aerial photographs he believed were in existence. He was sure these photographs would show
Solo
’s liferaft was not, as required under race rules, carried on deck. At five o’clock the morning after Long left for Launceston there was a party still in full swing aboard
Astor
on Hobart’s historic waterfront. It included a young Rupert Murdoch (who had just moved to Sydney from Adelaide and taken over the ownership of the
Daily Mirror
newspaper) and many of the crew who had been with him for the race aboard his yacht
Ilina
– “Thunder”, “Rawmeat”, “Curley” and Don (who went under the nick name of “Don Two” because there already was a “Don Juan”). While they partied,
Ondine
sat silently at the dock nearby, devoid of all signs of human activity.

Long’s actions became the subject of much debate with the revellers aboard
Astor.
The consensus was that instead of hunting for
Solo
, and the win he felt he deserved, he should be enjoying life as a hospitable host in post-race celebrations aboard his yacht. It did not take much for some of those aboard
Astor
to decide they would help out. An
Ondine
party would happen – with or without Huey Long.

Murdoch, ably assisted by one of his newspaper managers, “Curley” Brydon, convinced a local printer he was
Ondine
’s owner and had a thousand impressive party invitations printed. They were “Ondine blue” and advised of a celebration taking place aboard the yacht at 8pm the next evening. The “planning committee” moved to the local hotel that afternoon. There Murdoch, Mickleborough, Brydon and friends hand-addressed the invitations to everyone from the Lord Mayor of Hobart to the local pipe band; the Marine Board, the nurses’
quarters of the Hobart hospital and owners of other competing yachts.

“They were signed ‘hope you can make it, Huey’,” Mickleborough recalled. “And just to cover our bases I had my brother in Launceston send a telegram to
Ondine
’s sailing master, Sven Joffs, in Hobart, asking him to ready the yacht for the party. He signed it ‘Huey’.”

By 8pm there were spectacular scenes around Constitution Dock. Murdoch and company had sufficient 18-gallon kegs of beer delivered to the area in front of
Ondine
to satisfy the considerable thirst of the assembled guests. With no sign of Huey Long, Joffs, an extremely dedicated yacht manager, stood on the deck looking bemused if not bewildered. All the time he was easing out the dock lines to make it impossible for those onshore to step aboard. As the pipe band played the Lord Mayor’s car slowly made its way through the crowd. The Lord Mayor alighted to be greeted by the call for “three rousing British cheers”.

It soon became apparent this was a “no-host party”. But in Hobart you don’t need a host, in fact you don’t really need a reason for a party. Eventually Huey Long arrived and it took him no time to realise what was happening. He retreated rapidly to his hotel and spent the next few hours trying unsuccessfully to charter an aircraft out of town.

“Sadly, Huey missed a great party,” Mickleborough said. “Even the police joined in.”

Huey Long suffered no long-term effects after the 1962 post-race celebrations, and the magic of Hobart brought him back again and again with successively bigger yachts in the years that followed.

The second Sydney to Hobart, in 1946, attracted a fleet of 19 starters and confirmed the race’s future. Once again the colourful comments and plaudits flowed following its completion.
Seacraft
magazine’s headline read: “Small Yacht Wins Again…
Christina
’s great victory proves that the present generation can provide its full quota of iron men to sail the wooden ships.”

The following year the fleet expanded to 28, but further growth stalled until 1956. From that year on the Sydney to Hobart continued to grow through to 1985 when a fleet of 180 set sail. Nothing could compare though with the 50th anniversary race in 1994. In what was to be one of the greatest assemblies of ocean racing yachts and talent the world had seen, a staggering 371 yachts lined up on Sydney Harbour. It was an unprecedented show of strength even by international standards.

Accompanying the growth of the race over more than five decades has been the steady development of one of the best safety and communication networks covering any of the world’s major offshore events. Due to the probability of inclement, if not downright ferocious, weather, the Sydney to Hobart has become an annual testbed for race organisation, yacht design and hull construction. Top international sailors like New Zealander Geoff Stagg do this race as often as possible “for a reality check”. Stagg, who is the representative-at-large for the world’s most successful ocean racing yacht designer, Bruce Farr of Annapolis in Maryland, was aboard the 1997 race winner,
Beau Geste.
He reckons the Sydney to Hobart stresses just about everything – the structure, rig, sails and crew. “The Hobart is a bloody great race. I think it’s actually tougher than an around-the-world race because I don’t think the around-the-world racers get anything like the
extreme conditions you get in a Hobart race. The Hobart race also demands a good all-round boat. Oneway machines rarely do any good. In fact very few of them actually finish.” Stagg said that one of the most difficult aspects lay with the crew and what was demanded of them.

“You need a real balance. It’s hard for the crew in the middle of the boat to understand that in a race like the Hobart they have to stay on the rail [sitting on the windward side of the deck] around the clock when you are belting upwind. Their weight is crucial to the performance of the yacht. It doesn’t matter how tired you are, you have to stay there. At the same time we have to get the helmsman and [sail] trimmer who are off watch down below to rest. Having them rested for their next watch is just as crucial as having the remaining crew on the rail. When the moment presents itself, when we crack off or set spinnakers, that’s when the bulk of the crew can catch up on a lot of sleep. That’s the key to winning races. It’s a team effort. If you don’t do that you’re not serious about winning.”