Fatal Storm (4 page)

“I always wanted a boat but I could never figure out why people wanted to own a boat by themselves. It’s better to share the costs and the fun. Pete and I always got along well. I liked the way he ran a boat – the
way he used it all the time, Wednesdays, Thursdays and weekends – Pete was always out there. I was sort of thinking about a 40-footer. I thought that might be something that we could handle physically and financially. Then I realised he was thinking more along the lines of a 50-footer or 60-footer. That thought became a little easier for me to accept when he brought Stan Zemanek into the equation.”

Zemanek, Australia’s most successful night-time talkback radio show host, had known Sorensen since they raced skiffs on Sydney Harbour decades earlier. With the syndicate formed, Hodder, Sorensen and Zemanek went out and purchased the 50-footer
Morning Mist III
from Melbourne in 1998. Their desire was essentially straightforward – to race hard and have a good time. Their initial target was the exclusive, invitation only Big Boat Series at Hayman Island in Queensland’s Whitsunday region in August.
Morning Mist III
collected first prize in its division. The trio had a winner.

They were hoping their good fortune would continue the following week at Hamilton Island Race Week, but just eight miles out of Hayman their luck ran out.
Morning Mist III
ploughed into a reef travelling at a speed of eight knots. The structural damage to the hull and keel was so extensive that the insurers went close to considering it a write-off. Chastened but by no means defeated, Hodder, Sorensen and Zemanek decided that they should turn their attention to the Hobart race. The yacht was duly trucked back to Sydney for major surgery.

“The damage was massive,” said Julie. “The hull had to be stripped of everything then turned upside down in a shed at McConaghy’s boat yard. Almost the entire bottom of the hull had to be cut out and rebuilt.”

The work took longer than anticipated. Plans to have
Morning Mist III
– now named
Foxtel-Titan Ford
– tested
in lead-up races in late December evaporated. The keel was bolted back on and the yacht relaunched only days before the start.

The 1998 Hobart race would be its first sea trial.

In August 1979 Paul “Tanzi” Lea was one of many people acclaimed as a hero in Britain. For three days he piloted a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter through a vicious storm over the Irish Sea, searching for disabled and sinking yachts and plucking survivors from the decimated fleet in the Fastnet Race. Fifteen competitors died that year along with two other sailors who were accompanying the fleet on a non-race yacht.

“I was actually on leave…summer leave because it was August. I was sitting at home in the garden talking to some friends when the phone call came. They said, ‘Look, there’s a problem with the Fastnet Race. Can you come on out and help?’. Off I went and I think we were about the third Sea King to launch out of the air station at Culdrose.”

The rescue effort was a distressing yet poignant climax to an impressive career which had begun at the age of 17. Lea had joined the Royal Navy in 1964 despite harbouring a desire to head for the skies rather than the sea. Eight years later his dream was realised when he was assigned to train with a Sea King squadron. In 1981 he came to Australia with his wife, Gill, and their two young children, Daniel and Joanne.

“I came on an exchange posting for just over two years,” he said. “It was an opportunity we really looked forward to accepting. I did 10 months on the Sea Kings and then 15 months as an instructor with 723 squadron. It was a very enjoyable period in our life, so much so that when we went back to the UK the lifestyle that I’d experienced in Australia
began to nag at me. In the end it got to me so much that I had no alternative but to sit down with my wife and children and talk about living in Australia.”

Subsequently Lea re-established contact with the Royal Australian Navy and, after two years of negotiation, was offered a permanent job with the primarily land-based Sea King squadron at HMAS
Albatross
at Nowra, south of Sydney. He would go on to become the Chief Pilot and Commanding Officer.

In mid-1990, when they arrived in Australia, Lea and his wife were feeling confident about their new life. The children weren’t so sure.

“After a few months however my eldest son, Daniel, said ‘Dad, I want to stay here now’. Australia was home.”

Just three years after arriving in Australia, Lea was called on to act as a guardian over the Sydney to Hobart fleet in the punishingly rough 1993 event. Having enjoyed a considerable amount of dinghy sailing over the years, the Sydney to Hobart rekindled an interest and he began to follow the race each year. When it came to the time for the 1998 race Lea was on leave, not stand-by, from HMAS
Albatross.

“I remember hearing there might be a bit of dodgy weather around for the yachts but thought, oh we’re covered, [even though] we only get twelve hours notice on an emergency. Sunday was a normal day for me. I went kayaking on the local river in the morning as I often do. In the afternoon it was the usual gardening…that sort of stuff. At around seven o’clock the phone rang. The message was simply ‘come on in’. Luckily I hadn’t had a drink…so I was at the base by 7.30pm.”

Lieutenant Commander Tanzi Lea was again on his way to becoming a hero.

Rob Kothe was a relative newcomer to the Grand Prix level of ocean racing, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to be a winner.

“I was always interested in sailing, so much so that in the fifties and sixties I was one of the young kids who listened to everything I could on the radio that had anything to do with sailing. I always listened to the call of the America’s Cup on radio. You’ve got to be nutty to do that sort of stuff. The problem was that I lived out in the bush, on the other side of the Great Dividing Range, at Tumbarumba, down towards Canberra. I couldn’t go sailing in the seventies so I was a sail plane competitor – a glider pilot. When I came to Sydney I realised that sail planing was out and sailing was in.”

Kothe would later learn, as he increased his profile at the CYC, that he and fellow member George Snow, the owner of the maxi yacht
Brindabella
, used to share the same airspace gliding over the Brindabella Ranges near Canberra.

After a year away, Steve Kulmar had decided it was time to return to offshore racing.

“I needed a year away from the sport after sailing in the Admiral’s Cup in England in 1997,” Kulmar said. “I’d sailed boats every year of my life since I was eight. There had been little else in just about all of my social life and available time. I needed a break. I told a friend, Ron Jacobs, I was thinking about doing some casual sailing again. He encouraged me to meet with himself and Rob Kothe at the Oaks Hotel at Neutral Bay in late September. I found Kothe to be a nice enough bloke, and as keen as mustard. I thought, well I’ll do a couple of races with them and see.

“I made it clear that I wasn’t available all the time because I didn’t want to get caught up in the full-on racing
scene and immediately find myself back where I was a year earlier. If we thought we all liked each other, well, then I’d commit to a Hobart. It was a pretty casual arrangement.” Kothe, Kulmar and the
Sword of Orion
crew did strike a chord and Kulmar committed to do the Hobart as a principal helmsman.

Kulmar and his wife Libby had been childhood friends in the Sydney waterfront suburb of Hunters Hill. Both sailed out of the local sailing club. Friendship blossomed into romance and they married in 1983 – but not before Steve had sailed in the Admiral’s Cup that year. Libby knew she was marrying a man and his sport.

“I never had any qualms about Steve going ocean racing,” she said. “Never. Not even in 1984 when I was pregnant with Pip and it was a rough race did I worry. I’d lie in bed at night, listen to the storm outside and say, ‘Yeah, it’s windy’ but that was it. [Steve was aboard the eventual race winner,
Indian Pacific
, that year.] I didn’t even worry about this race when we heard what it was going to be like.”

It was the Kulmar family’s turn to host Christmas lunch at their modern flat-roofed home overlooking Manly and the waters of the northern part of Sydney Harbour. The huge ceiling-to-floor windows afforded spectacular views and large doors ensured that summer sea breezes kept the occupants cool. A large swimming pool, aside from providing instant refreshment from the summer heat, was also a great benefit to daughters Pip, 13, and Madeline, 10, who were competitive swimmers.

“We had 33 people for lunch; family, friends and some sailors,” recalls Libby. “It was glorious. The kids were in the pool all day having a great time. Everyone was talking about the race, they were keen to follow it, especially with Steve racing again.”

Mindful that he probably wouldn’t get much sleep over the ensuing days, Steve Kulmar slipped quietly away from the Christmas celebrations around mid-afternoon and went to bed. When he returned to the party after his “power nap” there were few guests left. The day wound down in a relaxed and convivial fashion and before long the entire Kulmar clan, including Libby’s parents who were staying over, turned in as well.

Just 48 hours later Steve Kulmar would unwittingly be part of Australia’s largest ever peacetime search and rescue operation.

I
t was around VP Day – Victory in the Pacific Day for the Allies in 1945 – when a small group of offshore sailing enthusiasts decided they would hold a dinner one evening at Usher’s Hotel in Sydney. Little more than 12 months earlier they had formed the Cruising Yacht Club of New South Wales (which would later become the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia). Prior to and during World War II Usher’s was one of the classiest hotels in energetic downtown Sydney. It was where successful businessmen relaxed over a chilled ale at the end of a busy day and where ladies enjoyed being wined and dined in the plush comfort of the first-level dining room. The five-storey, dark-brick building was classically proportioned, and was located on one of the city’s bustling thoroughfares, Castlereagh Street. Its robust design, with windows, doorways and awnings heavily highlighted, was typical of the colonial architecture of the time.

One of the CYC’s founders, Peter Luke, knew that the Royal Navy’s Chief Engineer at its wartime Sydney Harbour base at Woolloomooloo, Captain John Illingworth, was a pre-eminent ocean racing yachtsman from England. In fact it was said of Illingworth in one prominent Sydney magazine at the time: “He was perhaps
the greatest exponent of sailing and ocean racing yet to visit Australia, and he greatly impressed Australian yachtsmen with knowledgeable lectures substantiated by victories in leading offshore and harbour events.” Little wonder that Luke invited him to be the guest speaker at the dinner.

In its embryonic days, CYC members would hold what they described as “very informal and low-key” club meetings in the photographic studio owned by Peter Luke’s father, Monty. It was next door to Usher’s Hotel. When there was a need for members to get together over dinner it was usually at a small place near Wynyard, the mid-city rail and bus terminus. “It was called Sue’s Café,” Peter Luke said, “but the food they served was sufficiently bad for us to always call it the Greasy Spoon.”

The dinner at Usher’s was obviously a very special occasion. The small audience was captivated by Captain Illingworth’s vivid stories of offshore racing in England. Later, as they relaxed over port and quality cigars, Bert Walker – who was the club’s first president – remarked somewhat casually to Illingworth, “Jack Earl and I are cruising down to Hobart after Christmas. Why don’t you join us?” Illingworth thought it a splendid idea and accepted the invitation. Enthusiastic conversation followed until someone in the group piped up, “Let’s make a race of it.”

The great race was conceived.

Until the proposal for the Hobart race surfaced most of the CYC’s sailing activities had been short coastal hops out of Sydney. Over the Christmas–New Year period of 1944, Earl, Luke and a few others had ventured some 200 miles south on a cruise to the beautiful little coastal town of Eden, near the NSW–Victorian border. The success of that adventure had excited Earl and his family and they began talking about a casual cruise farther south
the following Christmas. The plan was to sail aboard their stout ketch
Kathleen Gillett
– a veritable floating home.

It was pure coincidence that Earl and Walker – who were CYC founders – planned to cruise to Tasmania together. Earl, who later became a marine artist of international acclaim, was also the second Australian to cruise around the world. One weekend, when he and his family were aboard
Kathleen
and anchored off an isolated beach on Sydney Harbour, their plans took another step toward fruition.

Anchored nearby was Bert Walker’s yacht,
Saltair.
Earl knew that Walker, a Tasmanian, would have charts of the Tasmanian coast so he rowed his small dinghy across to
Saltair
and asked permission to step aboard. “I thought I’d ask him about ‘Tassie’ [Tasmania] and the Derwent River. He got very excited about that and said he would like to join us, to make it a cruise in company.” For the next hour the pair enjoyed a few drinks, checked charts of Tasmania and planned their voyage. Jack then rowed back to his yacht and revealed to his family the exciting new developments. It wasn’t long before Peter Luke heard of the plans for the cruise and he asked if he could join them with his yacht,
Wayfarer.

Once the decision had been made at Usher’s Hotel, there was no slowing the momentum. The start date was December 26, Boxing Day in Australia. It was considered to be an ideal time as it was the height of summer and it would allow competitors and their families to enjoy Christmas Day at home. Unfortunately, for Earl’s family, their enthusiasm for the cruise to Hobart was soon replaced with the realisation that it was now a race. They would not be going along for the ride.

The first time the general public became aware of the event was via a printed addendum to a small article in the
October, 1945 edition of
Australian Power Boat and Yachting Monthly Magazine.
It was so small it could easily have gone unnoticed.

“Yacht Race to Tasmania; it is expected that an Ocean Yacht Race may take place from Sydney to Hobart probably starting on December 26, 1945. Yachtsmen desirous of competing should contact Vice President Mr P. Luke, 62 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, for information. Entries close December 1, 1945.”

The article preceding the addendum announced the results of a race conducted by “the Cruising Yacht Club of NSW” over 17 nautical miles from Sydney Harbour to Palm Beach. The sturdy 35-foot cutter
Maharani
(later abbreviated to
Rani
) and skippered by Captain J. Illingworth, was the winner.

The Notice of Race for the Sydney to Hobart was soon issued. It reminded competitors that “the setting of spinnakers is not permitted” – something in keeping with the cruising attitudes of those first entrants. A method of measuring and handicapping yachts was devised and a starting line chosen “ from Flagstaff Point, off Quarantine Bay, 200 yards in length, with the starter’s boat identified by a white CYC flag.” The practice of the white CYC flag remains a club tradition to this day. The line was actually just inside the entrance to Sydney Harbour – to the north. In later years the race would start on the south side, closer to the CBD.

Contacted by the CYC, the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, in Hobart, agreed to manage the finish line while the Royal Australian Air Force agreed to schedule “flying exercises” for Catalina flyingboats over the course so they could report the position of any yacht sighted.

Word of the race was greeted with great enthusiasm by the daily press. The Australian public, still weary after five years of war, was in need of fresh excitement and adventure. This was it – a perfect panacea in the form of a daring 630-nautical mile voyage from NSW to Tasmania. Brave men, and at least one woman, would be fighting unpredictable and often tempestuous seas aboard small boats all in the name of fun.

As the start date approached there were 10 yachts registered to compete. At the last minute the Livingston brothers advised that their yacht,
Warrana
, was unable to get away from Melbourne in time to reach Sydney. In years to come, though, the Livingstons would leave an indelible mark on the history of the classic. They raced the famous yachts carrying the name
Kurrewa
with considerable success and they also donated a magnificent perpetual trophy, the F. & J. Livingston Trophy, for the first yacht to be positioned south of Tasman Island at the entrance to Tasmania’s Storm Bay.

The first race provided the avid Australian newspaper readers and radio listeners with all the high drama and exhilaration they wanted. Front-page news headlines told of the fleet’s plunge into the face of a fast-approaching southerly gale and the possibility that the storm had claimed
Rani
, Captain Illingworth and his crew. The Catalina flyingboats could only locate the 56-footer
Winston Churchill
at the head of the fleet. There was no sign of
Rani.
The flight crew didn’t realise that Captain Illingworth had pushed on into the jaws of the storm while his rivals had slowed or even stopped. Lashed to the mast by ropes when on deck, Illingworth and his crew pressed on and sailed out of the blue into Storm Bay, 44 miles from the finish. They reached Hobart unscathed and received a tumultuous welcome from the people of
the city.
Rani
claimed both the line honours trophy and the prize for being first on handicap.

Jack Earl, in his biography, saw that first race this way:

“We had a wonderful sail down the coast until we got to Montagu Island when a southerly buster hit us. Illingworth, we heard later, had reefed down and forereached
Rani
through it. He just refused to take any of the gear off her. His attitude was ‘we will only have to put it back on again’. We reefed down and nursed our ship along in a very conservative fashion, and hove-to through that gale. Some of the boats actually put into the south coast ports. The crews of
Saltair
and
Abermerle
are supposed to have spent time ashore shooting rabbits and going to the movies.

“Illingworth just kept plugging away. He was out of radio contact for quite a few days and at one stage we all presumed he’d been lost. Well, of course, the rest is history. Illingworth won by a day. We were still mooching down the Tassie coast when we heard that he had suddenly popped up in Storm Bay. When we got right up into the Derwent there was a tremendous north-westerly gale. It blew 74 knots and really knocked the fleet about. We had a triple reefed main, a jib and a mizzen. But within a quarter of a mile of the line the breeze suddenly dropped and the Derwent was as flat as a millpond. It wasn’t worth putting all that gear back on again so we just concentrated on getting across the finish. We came in third just behind
Winston Churchill.
We learned a few tricks from that first race and when I went down the following year as mate in Bob Bull’s
Christina
, we pulled out all stops and we won.”

Illingworth’s remarkable effort in ploughing on through the worst of the gale and trouncing his opponents stimulated an enormous tide of public interest in the future of the event.
Australian Power Boat and
Yachting Monthly
’s report on the race noted: “The hope that an ocean race would be held annually was expressed at a civic reception given by the Lord Mayor (Mr Soundy, MHA) at the Hobart Town Hall on January 8, 1946.”

Responding to a speech by the Governor of Tasmania, Admiral Sir Hugh Binney, Captain Illingworth said he and his crew “had been deeply impressed by the welcome given them in Hobart, which was an ideal place at which to end an ocean race.”

The race report continued: “The Cruising Yacht Club at Sydney and the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania had launched the sport of ocean racing on a firm basis. A next step was for an Australian yacht to visit Great Britain and ‘take the ashes away’. Every other branch of Australian sport had been represented in contests in Britain. The president of the CYC (Mr Walker), who sailed
Saltair
, said that nowhere else could yachtsmen have received a better welcome.”

Walker was quoted as suggesting that when the next race was held it was likely to attract between 30 and 40 boats. “At no far distant time Australia should challenge the USA,” he said. “We have the men in Hobart now who can steer a boat as well as and better than Mr Vanderbilt [the famed America’s Cup defender].”

The Sydney to Hobart was soon confirmed as an annual event and it took only a few years for it to be acclaimed as one of the world’s three “majors” in offshore racing – the others being the Fastnet Race out of England and America’s Newport to Bermuda. All three events demanded the highest level of skill and endurance, regardless of the conditions.

In many respects the Sydney to Hobart is perhaps the greatest of them all. From the colourful start within the
natural amphitheatre that surrounds Sydney’s magnificent harbour, through to the finish at the waterfront dock area of the beautiful and historic city of Hobart, it is a race of guts, determination, majesty and splendour.

The 630-mile course is seen to have four distinct and always challenging components. There is the unpredictable and often savage Tasman Sea off the NSW south coast; the notorious Bass Strait crossing between mainland Australia and the island state of Tasmania where wild winds and shallow water can compress waves into massively powerful, foaming liquid mountains; the challenging stretch down the Tasmanian coast and across the often appropriately named Storm Bay where bitterly cold winds can sweep in from the Antarctic region and bring a freezing winter chill to high summer, and finally there’s the test presented by the last stretch, the 11 nautical miles up the Derwent River

to the finish line. Anywhere on this course the whim of the wind gods can take you from calm to calamity in a flash – even on the river.

The Sydney to Hobart is an unpredictable race, at times serene at others terrifying. A gentle spinnaker ride down the coast with the sun warming one’s back is like a sleigh ride across smooth new snow. The first light of the new day, where the darkest of nights ever so slowly gives way to dawn’s palette of pastels, is an experience few could forget.