Cowes with culture and sunshine

The editor reports on Audi Hamilton Island Race Week. Photos by Andrea Francolini/Audi.

Hamilton Island Race Week is an event that every sailor should do at least once in a lifetime. It really is the benchmark against which all other race weeks will be compared.

The island’s CEO and former world champion sailor, Glenn Bourke, described the week as “Cowes with culture and sunshine”. He pointed out that like Cowes Week in the UK, boats racing at Hamilton Island have to cope with shifting winds and strong currents in the channels between the islands, so the racing is very technical. The other similarity, he said, is that at both events, “the sailors come to race hard and drink”.

While Hamilton Island certainly offers plenty of “culture” in its social program
(see below) the comment about sunshine was ironic in that I was sitting in his office on the day that it rained and the temperature struggled to reach 20 degrees. In the Whitsundays in August, that was obviously an aberration.

Racing for all classes

Hamilton Island attracts the biggest collection of big boats of any of the race weeks in Australia. This year there was a Superyacht class which featured Wild Oats XI taking on Lang Walker’s 58.4m Dubois-designed Kokomo and Aaron Abramowitz’s 49.8m Perini Navi Perseus. Obviously handicapping such a diverse range of craft wasn’t easy, but all three boats managed at least one race win on handicap, with Kokomo taking the overall honours.

However, when we talk Hamilton Island racing we generally mean IRC and this year’s IRC Grand Prix start list was a veritable “who’s who” of Australian and New Zealand big boat racing. Among the starters was Peter Millard and John Honan’s supermaxi Lahana, the two Reichel Pugh 66s Black Jack and Wild Oats X, Stephen Ainsworth’s RP 63 Loki and eight other boats of 50ft or longer, including Living Doll, Shogun, Scarlett Runner, Yendys, Secret Men’s Business and the new Kiwi TP52 Georgia, which had America’s Cup legend Chris Dickson calling tactics.

With so many quality boats on the start line, this division got the most attention from the media. Ultimately Loki, with Irishman Gordon Maguire at the helm, prevailed over Georgia, with Wild Oats X third. Iain Murray was at the helm of Wild Oats and showed his knowledge of the local conditions to run down the much larger Lahana under spinnaker in one race, where just seconds separated the first few boats across the line.

Loki’s victory also won Stephen Ainsworth the IRC Australian Championship and an Audi car, after a nail-biting battle with the much smaller Aroona, the Archambault 31 owned by Harvey Milne. Aroona led the championship going into Hamilton Island and when the last race had been completed Milne had missed out by just 0.31 of a point.

South Pacific Cup

In an interesting side-bar to the main event, the traditional trans-Tasman rivalry was given a boost in the battle for the South Pacific Cup. The Kiwis took the trophy back from the Australian holders, with Georgia and the Rob Bassett/Brett Russell-owned Bakewell White 52 Wired beating Rob Hanna’s TP52 Shogun and Bruce Absolon’s Volvo Ocean 60 Spirit of the Maid.

As any racing sailor knows, every boat in every fleet has another boat that they “must beat”. The South Pacific Cup added spice to the racing for the four boats involved and it’s a concept that could perhaps be extended to inter-state rivalry at this and other race weeks.

Another race-within-a-race that is always conducted at Hamilton Island was the battle between Wild Oats X and Black Jack. These two almost identical Reichel Pugh 66s love going at each other on the water but it is always in the right spirit. So much so that the crews enjoy a formal dinner together during the regatta.

Cruising Division

The Hamilton Island marina is divided into two “camps” On the right as you look towards Dent Island are the IRC boats, with their huge carbon rigs reaching to the sky and their mostly professional crews busy offloading gear and preparing the sail wardrobe for the day’s racing.

On the left, often rafted up, are the Beneteaus, Jeanneaus, Hunters, Catalinas, Bavarias and other production boats competing in the Cruising Division. However, that is not to say that the racing is any less competitive.

While the inimitable John Clinton and crew on Holy Cow fired up their barbecue to cook lunch during one light wind race, there were some excellent sailors among the crews on this side of the marina too.

I had the good fortune to spend a day racing on INON which is an acronym for It’s Now or Never, as I discovered during the race. This magnificent custom-designed Beneteau 64 is owned by Bruce Gray and was skippered by 1984 Olympian Jamie Wilmot. The crew of “gun” sailors included Jeremy Whitty, Gosford to Lord Howe race director Bob Swan, Jamie’s wife Marita, Mark Thorpe, Ken Tuckey, David Fuller, Anne Wragby and Andrew Gray.

Fully-equipped down below with air-conditioning and comfy armchairs, this is not a boat that you throw into tacking duels. However, in the hands of a master helmsman like Wilmot, once underway and tuned to perfection she showed a remarkable turn of speed.

As the opposition all tacked several times towards the windward mark, Wilmot found a line of good pressure that was out of the four knot current and carried one board almost to the layline. Despite a problem with the snuffer when launching the spinnaker, this windward work had put the big blue boat close enough to the faster yachts to win the race on handicap. It was great to watch a master at work!

The Social Side

Hamilton Island Race Week is magnificently organised. Because the island is privately owned, the full resources of the staff and facilities can be dedicated to making the event work.

I spoke to several sailors who said it was easy getting a “leave pass” for the regatta because their wives were desperate to come to this event and enjoy the tennis coaching, fashion parade, wine tasting, Moet lunch, themed dinners and other events on the social calendar. And everywhere you look, there are small children in strollers – usually the offspring of someone out on a yacht.
At the preceding Airlie Beach event, the social activities revolve around the beer tent, with the Wolverines hammering out “A Bloody Great Day to Go Sailing” and all the crews mixing and mingling in their tropical shirts. While Hamilton Island is more “formal” and Glenn Bourke’s claim of “Cowes with culture” is very true, the average sailor is not forgotten.

An example was the Wednesday night activities. As wealthy yacht owners mingled with the “who’s who” of Sydney’s eastern suburbs at the Barefoot Black Tie dinner ($195 a head), the steakhouse in the marina was full to overflowing with a younger set who had paid $95 for a Beer, Beef and Reef night complete with after-dinner speeches from sporting poet Rupert McCall and rugby league personality Gordon Tallis. Meanwhile, around the corner at the marina tavern other yachties simply drank beer and told lies.

I asked Glenn Bourke what the future holds for the event. “Is this as good as it can get?” Glenn repeated his comment from last year, that the organisers are ‘polishing the diamond”. They think they’ve got it pretty close to right, but continue to look at the “one-percenters” to make every year slightly better.

Glenn says that the event can continue to grow from the current 200 boats. They plan to put another marina finger in, and can also look at moorings with a shuttle service to increase numbers.

“Last year we were still finishing the construction phase, which made it tough. This year we could turn our attention to running the events better, on and off the water,” Glenn said. “The quality of the boats (that enter the regatta) is excellent and more families are coming, which is good. I think we can accommodate another 50 or even 100 boats in future years, so the event will continue to get bigger and better.”

Perhaps the last word on Hamilton Island Race Week should go to a visitor, Chris Dickson. After a 10 year absence, this was Dickson’s first visit to the island under the Oatley ownership.

“When I was last here the regatta was trying to emulate and aspire to the major European regattas, now the tables have turned and I think the organisers of those regattas are looking at Hamilton Island. There’s a very high level of racing and calibre of sailor here this week,” he said. Put Hamilton Island on your Bucket List.

Sail with Sailing

If you would like to enjoy the delights of Hamilton Island, Airlie Beach or Magnetic Island race weeks but can’t get your boat to the Whitsundays, you can come sailing with this magazine.

We have two new Beneteau 40s available, which can accommodate up to eight crew members for each of the three regattas. You can join
up in ones and twos, or bring your whole crew.

As a special attraction, you can also go home a much better sailor.
We are contracting a major sailing star (see next issue for details) to teach our crews the finer points of starting, race tactics and sail trim during the regattas.

Off the water, your race week package will include access to social events and a special editor’s dinner for the crews of both boats.
For further details of the packages, please contact Mariner Boating
on (02) 9966 1244.

RESULT

IRC Grand Prix

1. Loki (Stephen Ainsworth, CYCA) 13; 2. Georgia (Jim Farmer, RNZYS) 28; 3. Wild Oats X (Iain Murray, HIYC) 31

IRC Passage Div 1

1. Evolution Racing (Ray Roberts, CSC) 10; 2. Charisma (Alejandro Perez Calzada, RCNB) 19; 3. Canute (Peter Horn, MHYC) 26

IRC Passage Div 2

1. Local Hero (Mathew Owen, CYC) 8; 2. Aroona (Harvey Milne, RMYC) 9; 3. Onya (Andrew Hurt, MHYC) 20

Performance Racing Div 1

1. IAGO (Ben Mc Grath, CYCA) 25; 2. Questionable Logic (Terry Archer, WSC) 27; 3. Wired (Rob Bassett, RNZYS) 30

Performance Racing Div 2

1. WhaleWatchingSydney (Peter Ford, CYCA) 18; 2. Bandit (Matt Allen/Warwick Rooklyn, CYCA) 20; 3. Lincoln Mentor (Simon Tarvey, PLYC) 25

Cruising Div 1

1. Condor (David Molloy, WSC) 26; 2. C’est la vie (Bill Hill, RPYC) 29;

3. INON (Bruce Gray, RPAYC) 31

Cruising Div 2

1. Imagine (Kym Clarke, PLYC) 31; 2. Epsilon (Ann McComb, RYCT) 33; 3. Mango Madness (Bo Wharton, DSC) 38

Cruising Divi 3

1. Campeador (Jonathan Threlfall, RSYS) 26; 2. Charlie’s Dream (Peter Lewis,RQYS) 26; 3. Peggy (Benjamin Meakin, NYRC) 28

Non-spinnaker

1. Still Dangerous (Ivor Burgess, RPAYC) 2; 2. Supertramp (Sue and Alan Pick, RPAYC) 30; 3. Ceilidh (Peter Williams, RSYS) 31

SB3

1. Dulon Polish (Phillip Gray) 21; 2. Toll Shipping (Nick Rogers) 22; 3. Jump (Dennis Winstanley) 24

Super Yachts

1. Kokomo (Lang Walker) 6; 2. Perseus (Aaron Abramowitz) 7; 3. Wild Oats XI (Bob Oatley/Mark Richards) 8