Reef Magazine Hamilton Island

Story by Lisa Radcliff

This year, Hamilton Island Race Week celebrates four decades of bringing Australia's Sailing community together in one of the world's most breathtaking settings. Lisa Ratcliff talks to the sailors and characters who are all part of the landmark event's rich and colourful history.

Hammo, as it's affectionately known, is a week-long winter sailing series and part of a tradition of mostly southern state boats and crews migrating along Australia's east coast, either cruising north or hopping between feeder events, to join a strong Queensland contingent and a sprinkling of other state representatives in the glorious Whitsundays.

In 1983, Melbourne sailor David "Chalky" Hutchen proposed the idea of Hamilton Island Race Week to the island's then owner, Keith Williams. The entrepreneur and former water skiing champion purchased Hamilton Island in the mid-1970s, developing it from scratch into a premier tourist destination, including a commercial airport, harbour and resort.

"I'd been to Hamilton Island in my yacht Banjo Paterson and the harbour was being dredged," Hutchen says. "I could see the potential, so at dinner in Airlie Beach with Keith I put the idea to him, "When you've finished dredging, it would be a good place to hold a regatta'. He asked what I meant, and I said, "You get a whole lot of yachties and their mates, wives and kids and use the yacht racing as the nucleus of the event'. Keith's response was "Well, get on with it".

"The next morning, I sent Keith a white paper with my thoughts on what the event might look like, wondering if he was actually serious about the idea."

He was. Hutchen and his small but mighty team of regatta director Warwick Hoban and fellow Queensland-based ex-Melbournian Leon O'Donoghue started work. Ultimately they had to accept the island didn't have the infrastructure to host the predicted fleet of up to 60 boats in 1983, given that it and the marina were still under construction and the accommodation and eating options were so limited. They decided to reschedule the opening series for April 1984.

When Hutchen went to the Queensland Yachting Association (now Yachting Queensland) to register the event with the appropriate state authority, the president at the time was a Brisbane lawyer. I told him what we were trying to do he looked at me and said, "This is just a Keith Williams publicity stunt!'," Hutchen laughs. Lunch with the chief executive of the Australian Yachting Federation (now Australian Sailing) at the time smoothed things over.

Not only did Hutchen's team organise logistics, they negotiated sponsorship with Castlemaine Perkins's XXXX beer and Ansett, produced and sold the merchandise, invited and looked after the media, ran the racing and heard the protests.

The response to the inaugural Hamilton Island Race Week was beyond expectations: 93 yachts travelled to The Whitsundays, including Peter Briggs's Hitchhiker, the eventual IOR winner that was trucked across the country from Perth.

Hitchhiker and Briggs recreated the journey for Race Week's 25th anniversary in 2008. "It was the regatta that Australia needed," Briggs reflected of the startup during that anniversary week, "a contest based out of a superb venue that was away from the major centres of sailing. It was neutral territory. Most importantly, it was an ideal location for some excellent racing - made even more exciting by the fact that we all had to learn very quickly about handling fast-flowing tides.

 The competition was first class from the outset." Also, on the start sheet that first year was the eventual arbitrary handicap victor, Marcus Blackmore and his boat, The Manly Ferry.

Blackmore's longstanding love of Hamilton Island will bring he and his Hooligan crew back this August to vie for a sixth divisional win.

Other recognised yachts from the early years included Apollo, Condor, Ragamuffin, Windward Passage, Too Impetuous and Inch by Winch.

Unfortunately, the weather for the debut series was not what anyone envisioned. The wet season lived up to its name: rain poured down for almost the entire week, with the series referred to lightheartedly as "Hamilton Island Rain Week" in the "Wetsundays". The harbourfront mardi gras party staged mid-week became the "muddy gras".

For the first eight years Race Week was held in April, but the wet season's impact eventually took its toll and organisers rescheduled to August, a time of year that promised better weather and trade-wind sailing. Racing in T-shirts or shirtless in the subtropics at the end of the winter in the southern states and the series falling outside their summer pointscores brought sailors in droves.

Sydney yachtswoman Julie Hodder's first of 21 Race Weeks was the inaugural event in April 1984, on Simon Green's Thirlmere.

In 1985 she took a break from science teaching and joined as paid crew on Bob Bell's mighty maxi Condor, which would travel on from Hamilton Island to the UK for Cowes Week and the famed Fastnet Race.

"In those days most females sailing on big boats - in fact probably little boats as well - only had cooking jobs," Hodder remembers.

"I was very excited to participate and my theory on getting on boats was to always make yourself available. So, the morning of the first race I made all the sandwiches and then cleaned the bottom of the boat. I was also the scuba diver.

"I was standing on the dock to wave them goodbye as I was told there was not a job for me on short races. Just as they were about to leave, the owner Bob Bell said, 'Jump on'. Of course I had my sailing kit right next to me ready to go."

Hoban remembers a windless '85 - a regatta director's worst nightmare. "We were four days in and everyone was getting shirty. One day we were waiting off Catseye for hours and decided to have a motorboat circumnavigation of Hamilton Island scored using each boat's IOR handicap.

When the start gun went, everyone floored their throttle and charged off around the course in a huge cloud of black smoke. It broke the ice."

The morning after the close of racing in 1985, a spectacular fire destroyed the entire Polynesian-style main resort administration complex.

"I thought someone had burnt the toast," said the laconic Bob Bell at the time, in the understatement of the week. He was eating breakfast in the Dolphin Room and above, a tunnel of fire was racing between the ceiling and the roof.

"I had $10,000 in cash and jewellery in a safety deposit box. The manager and I were on the floor, choking in the thick smoke, trying to find the right key. The heat was incredible. A policeman screamed at us to get out fast; the place was about to cave in. I left the cash and ran," Bell said. Being in insurance, he knew that if he could take the box to the bank and they could count the layers, he could get his money back. Bell insisted on not disturbing the box, unlike others who accepted their burnt cash in a paper bag and got nothing back on insurance.

Helping the island's firefighting brigade were hundreds of crew members waiting to fly from the island. They got the local fire engine going, hurled furniture into the pool, beat burning embers with wet towels and sprayed the burés' thatched roofs with garden hoses.

For three island regulars - resident dolphins Dianna, Speedy and Buttons - the fire meant larger living quarters, as they were moved temporarily into the guests' huge swimming pool.

The debauchery of the first decade - the Whitehaven Beach Party, street parades, wet T-shirt competitions and general layday craziness corresponded with a carefree time, when public liability was regarded a United States problem.

Winner of the inaugural dinghy jousting event, Michael Spies, was also the event handicapper for 28 years - and a longtime competitor. Along with Apollo crewmates Steve "Mothy" Jarvin and David "Curly" Stalker, they took out the first elimination series. The following year "Spiesy" needed stiches to the head, such was the exuberance of the layday contest where two rowers in each dinghy would position their jouster wielding his jousting stick - a spinnaker pole or windsurfer mast with padding at the end - to knock the opposition jouster in the water.

The "greasy pole" challenge, where opponents would come at each other from opposite ends of the pole, made slippery with detergent, and try to knock each off with fenders is another Race Week classic from the archives.

"It was good fun, but pretty risky," Hoban admits. "We had all sorts of activities you couldn't get away with later on."

In his write up of the 1986 HIRW, yachting journalist Robin Copeland wrote of the post-Whitehaven beach party: "The following morning, in the lost and found column of the media centre's huge refrigerator door, appeared the following forlorn message, 'Lost, one Thursday. Would anyone finding Suzie Archibald's Thursday please return it to her at the media centre as soon as possible. She began losing it early on Whitehaven Beach, and by the time she returned to Hamilton Island, it was nothing more than a blur. The day was of enormous sentimental value, so obviously a huge reward is offered'."

Media articles suggest UK supergroup Dire Straits was staying on the island in '86 and delivered a late evening impromptu performance at the dock, thanks to the well-connected Bob Muir of Windward Passage maxi fame.

The early Race Weeks were jinxed by subtropical weather events. Severe tropical cyclone Aivu crossed the north Queensland coast on April 4, 1989, generating high winds and record April rainfall totals over large parts of the coast, including Hamilton Island, where Race Week was in full swing.

"Luckily the eye didn't pass over the island, so all we had was a lot of wind and a lot of rain," Hoban remembers. "Racing was cancelled for two days and the remaining days were rescheduled, so in the end we had sufficient good racing to crown a worthy winner."

Getting right the mix of racing and fun is the regatta director's ongoing challenge and is never easy. The decade started with two Race Week laydays and six racing days, which evolved to become one layday and seven days of racing, along with a change in the handicap system.

Handicapping in yacht racing allows boats of different sizes and designs to compete fairly against each other. The exception is a one-design fleet, where all boats are built identically. The International Offshore Rule (IOR) introduced in the 1960s was phasing out internationally by the 1980s and superseded in the early '90s by the International Measurement System (IMS), which became the Race Week handicap system in 1992.

Well-known boats from this decade included Morning Mist, Brindabella, Assassin, Atara,  Quest, Terra Firma and Marchioness.

Onshore not much changed, other than the removal of the Whitehaven Beach party from the social program thanks to charter boats crammed with backpackers overrunning the event. But a good number of contemporary crews still spend their mid-series layday relaxing at the world-famous beach.

The decade opened with the International Rule Club (IRC) replacing IMS as the Race Week rating system in 2001. A new era of skinnier boats built from lightweight carbon fibre and with lighter and more powerful rigs gave them power-to-weight ratios that unleashed boat speeds new to the sport. Trade-wind sailing on the turquoise waters of the Whitsundays was suddenly turbocharged.

Years earlier, Keith Williams was still developing the island when Australian winemaker Bob Oatley happened to be cruising The Whitsundays and found himself sailing past Hamilton Island.

"I didn't go ashore, but I could recognise the potential of the island," Oatley remarked.

"It was the very early days of the development; they were building the airstrip and the harbour at the time, and there was a lot of activity going on. I remember saying 'What a great project that is', never thinking that one day I'd be the owner."

Sandy Oatley, a sailor like his father, won the 2003 Hamilton Island Race Week grand prix division with his 58-foot Davidson called Another Duchess. In a surprise move, having sold Rosemount Estate, he and Bob sat down with the island team the next week to go over the financials. Another company was interested so the Oatleys had to move quickly. By Christmas their bid was accepted and in January 2004 their custodianship of the island began.

The arrival of the Oatleys and the sport's own evolution ushered in a new era for Race Week, as more women and families signed on to race and be part of destination regattas. The shenanigans of the 1980s and '90s transitioned to the arrival of early influencers and prestige brands offering Champagne lunches, fashion events and celebrity chef-hosted dinners.

Iain Murray, America's Cup regatta director and 27-time Rolex Sydney Hobart yachtsman, (including four overall victories), sums up the maturation of Race Week. "It went from a pretty big boys' week away to a well-rounded family event and opportunity to promote the island outside of sailing. The Oatleys shifted it from 'secret men's business' to being one of Australia's major regattas, if not the major."

Thanks to the passion of Race Week stalwart and longtime promotions manager Rob Mundle, one of the social-calendar mainstays, the Prix d' Elegance, has endured. The best excuse for an adult dress-up is the morning parade past a judging panel on the Yacht Club's Bommie Deck by race crews in costume aboard their decorated boat. Best themed and best presented yacht and crew are two Race Week trophies open to all.

At the end of the 2006 regatta and after 23 years of service, Hoban retired as regatta director and Denis Thompson took the chair. Thompson continues to administer the annual event and once onsite, runs a team of 22 officials plus the racing across six days each August.

Seeing happy sailors after a day's racing and the buzz of watching whales frolic near the racetrack are a couple of Thompson's many highlights. "You never get sick of it. The number of whales in The Whitsundays since I started has increased and it's always a highlight."

 Thompson is a man of the people and responsive to changes in the sport to accommodate as many boat types as possible. The event caters for trailable sports boats at just over six metres to 30-metre maxis such as Wild Oats XI and Wild Thing 100, straight-up racing machines such as the TP52s, cruising boats, cruiser-racers, one-design boats like the Cape 31s, and cruising and racing multihulls. Each year he pre-plans up to 40 options for short, medium and long courses around the islands, according to the tides. During the regatta, courses are selected each morning for all divisions - there were 13 different divisions in 2024 - based on the forecast winds. The plan is to keep everyone on the right side of the tidal gates and return them to the harbour to meet up with partners, family and friends well before sunset.

In 1984, the long race was an arduous 250 nautical mile overnighter - two nights at sea for the smaller boats - around the Whitsunday islands. But it wasn't popular and over time it dropped back to 150 nautical miles for a couple of years, then 83. Now the Nautilus Marine Insurance Classic Long Race is 49 nautical miles.

The Olympic gold- and silver-winning Australian sailing teams of London 2012 and Rio 2016 touched down during Race Week for their official homecoming. Seven Olympic medallists plus patrons visited in 2016 as part of their whirlwind return. The island hosted its own ticker-tape parade along Front Street, with local schoolchildren meeting their heroes.

 The subdued atmosphere in the media centre in 2013 acknowledged the passing of journalist Ian "Stripey" Grant earlier that year. Stripey was dedicated to promoting the sport of sailing, covering Hamilton Island Race Week from its inception and always working hard to generate mainstream media coverage for the sport.

A harbour expansion made room for the record fleet of 252 in 2016, including giant multihulls. Multihull racing and cruising divisions were added back into the competition mix in 2013.

Then Crown Prince (now King) Frederik of Denmark joined Race Week in 2017 at the helm of NANOQ (Wild Oats X), chartered from the Oatley family. The talented yachtsman was surrounded by a bevy of sailing superstars, and went on to claim the top IRC Racing trophy.

The most successful Race Week campaigner is owner/skipper Ray Roberts and his various boats with the Hollywood moniker. At least 10 divisional victories for Roberts and his winning Team Hollywood mean an annual uphill battle for others competing in the same division.

Queensland yachtie Mark Vickers, who helped move the resort dolphins to safety during the raging 1985 resort fire, holds the most Race Week caps, tallying at least 35 across 10 boats. Many have been alongside skipper Wayne Millar on his Murray 41 Zoe, a longstanding entry.

Australian around-the-world and professional sailor Stacey Jackson is another familiar face - she has competed 14 times on well-known yachts including the dual Rolex Sydney Hobart overall winner Alive, the Oatley family's Wild Oats X, Peter Harburg's 100-footer Black Jack and Blackmore's TP52 Hooligan.

Jackson says Race Week offers "a truly unique racetrack. Beautiful, clear blue waters, islands with palm trees and whales breaching amongst the yacht racing. And you're based on a tropical holiday island where competitors and supporters stay and socialise before and after a day of racing".

Only two Race Weeks didn't proceed - 2020 and 2021, due to the covid pandemic lockdowns.

The Oatley family's love of sailing and Hamilton Island took an already well-loved sailing series and turned it into a lifestyle phenomenon, combining world-class competition with a vibrant social calendar attracting sailors, families and VIPs.

The 40th anniversary event is a tribute to the original visionaries and organisers who work year round to maintain its top standing on the southern hemisphere racing and social calendar.

This rich history will be celebrated with a photographic exhibition at Hamilton Island Yacht Club from August 16 to 23, 2025, plus a range of commemorative T-shirts, one using the front cover design from the 1984 Notice of Race.

Guests are encouraged to join the celebrations during Race Week. Head to the Yacht Club mid-morning to watch the starts from the upper deck.

Front Street is where the party kicks off daily as the fleet returns, with live entertainment until late.

Wishing everyone a safe and exciting 40^th Hamilton Island Race Week.

hamiltonislandraceweek.com.au