New Buderim resident Bob Thomas understands how difficult the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race can be, having won the most devastating edition.
The 69-year-old is set to compete in his 29th Bluewater Classic next week, when he navigates Cinquante.
When asked why he keeps returning, he replied with a half laugh: “I’m stupid”.
“It’s a good hard race … and it’s the camaraderie, we’ve got a pretty good team.”
He hopes his 10-crew Sydney 38 yacht can press for division and handicap honours.
“The owner (and skipper) Kim Jagger has only got one arm, so he does it tough, but he loves the race and he’s put together a good crew,” Thomas said.
“We have one or two guys who are young and the rest of us are in our 50s and 60s but in a long race like that, with our experience of 150 to 170 Hobarts between us, we’ll handle a long, hard race as good as any crew.”
Thomas won with AFR Midnight Rambler in 1998, when six of the fleet’s sailors died and five boats were lost amid wild conditions.
“It was by three-fold the biggest seas I’ve ever seen in my life and I couldn’t even tell you how strong the wind was, and I’ve been through four or five cyclones,” he said.
“The winds were maybe 80 to 100 miles per hour (130-160km/h). Our wind instruments blew off the top early in the storm, which we met in Bass Strait, and we were looking at regular seas of 40 to 50 foot, and sometimes bigger than that, and we were in the calmer area.
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“We purposely got out of the current to look for smaller waves and to stay in them, instead of what the rest of the fleet did.
“They were chasing the big current, which, when the wind came, created bigger waves than we got which did a lot of damage.”
“And tactically we ended up 90 miles to weather of them which gave us an advantage they couldn’t beat.”
Thomas said he gets asked about that race every year.
Obviously, he doesn’t want to see ultra-rough conditions again, but some tricky winds would play into his crew’s hands.
“If the race has a slow start and then maybe a quick finish it helps us,” he said.
“We go to weather pretty well. We don’t run as fast as the big boats downwind obviously with spinnakers up, so we want the first half of the race to be fairly tough.”
Thomas recently relocated from Mackay to the Sunshine Coast.
“We used to do the Sydney to Mooloolaba Yacht Race every year, so I have raced here a number of times,” he said.
“Mackay was great, but we have done all the islands and stuff up there. It’s nice to come down here where there’s a bit more culture, a few restaurants and we can have easy access to Brisbane, and some of our kids are down here.”
The famous race gets under way on Boxing Day. This year’s edition should include almost 80 yachts. The Seven Network, through 7Mate, will once again broadcast the start of the race live around Australia.
