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Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race 1945
The crew of winning yacht Rani

LocationSydney to Hobart
StateNSW,Tasmania
CountryAustralia
ClubCruising Yacht Club of Australia
Websitewww.rolexsydneyhobart.com
Length of Race635 miles
Year Held From/ToBoxing Day

NM Article

Trove

24 Dec 1945 - Planes Will Cover Yacht Race - Trove (nla.gov.au)

24 Dec 1945 - Planes Will Cover Yacht Race - Trove (nla.gov.au)

Planes Will Cover Yacht Race

Royal Australian Air Force planes on regular patrol will keep the yachts in the Sydney to Hobart ocean race under constant observation.

The boats will start from the Quarantine Station flagstaff on Boxing Day at 11 am.

They will carry an average of six men each as crew and will be pro visioned for about a month at sea.

The race is expected to take from four to six days if favourable weather is experienced.

The Tasmanian entrant Winston Churchill, reached Sydney last Thursday after making elaborate preparations for the race.

The Sydney skippers have also spent a great deal of time and money refitting their boats

Hobart Regattas

The race will coincide with a series of important regattas at Hobart m which the New South Wales yachts will participate.

The finishing line for the ocean race will be at Hobart ocean pier.

Constant radio communication with shore radio stations will be main tamed and progress broadcast regularly.

The yachts range in size from the 34ft Ambermerle to the 63ft Mistral They will all start off the same mark.

Sydney Morning Herald 27th Dec 1945

BIG YACHTS BEGIN EXCITING RACE FROM SYDNEY TO HOBART - Trove (nla.gov.au)

Rani leading Salt Air and Mistral just after the nine competitors in the yacht race from Sydney to Hobart had entered open water yesterday. The race began with a flying start from Quarantine Point, inside Port Jackson at 11 o'clock.  (Story, page 4.)

Page 4 cont.

Page 4 27 Dec 1945 - Yachts Leave Sydney In Race To Hobart - Trove (nla.gov.au)

Yachts Leave Sydney In Race To Hobart

BY A SPECIAL REPORTER

Nine of Australia's finest seagoing yachts-each in its class an ideal of applied art-left Sydney for Hobart at 11 o'clock yesterday morning in a direct sailing race over a distance officially declared to be 635 miles. It is the longest ocean race of its type in Australian yachting history.

The clean lined, graceful Bermudian cutter Winston Churchill, from Tasmania, led the fleet in all its proud pageantry of tall spar, traceried rigging, and immense and immaculate canvas, through the Heads into open water furrowed by the wind but jewelled by the sun. Under the press of a vigorous, some times chancy, nor'-easter she skimmed the moderate swell to open a long lead.

Early, her veteran skipper. Percy Coverdale, was conservative with his cloth-he spread only jib and foresail, while other skippers shook out extras.

Past Coogee, however, he added a ballooner and the water at the Churchill's forefoot boiled in ineffective protest.

At that stage, Kathleen (J. Earl), a 44ft gaff yawl, was second, with Mistral (R. F. Evans), a gaff schooner of 63ft overall length, third.

The placings could not be regarded as significant, for the fleet had only begun to chaffer with those two irresponsibles, wind and wave.

The starters were:--Archina, Bermudian ketch, overall length 52ft (owner. Mr. P. Goldstein); Mistral, gaff schooner, 63ft 4 1/2 in (Mr. R. F. Evans); Wayfarer, Bermudian ketch, 39ft 1/2 in (Mr. R. M. Luke); Kathleen, gaff yawl, 44ft 1in (Mr. J. Earl); Rani, Bermudian cutter, 34ft 1/2 in (Captain Illingworth, R.N.); Ambermerle, Bermudian cutter, 34ft 1 1/2 in (Messrs. J. R. Colquhoun and C. Kiel); Saltair,  Mermudian ketch. 43ft 6 1/2in (Mr. R. M. Walker); Horizon, Bermudian ketch, 40ft 3 1/4 in (Mr. J. R. Bartlett); Winston Churchill, Bermudian cutter, 51ft 4 1/2in (Mr. P. Coverdale).

Symmetry and Speed Yachts with a sail-carrying capacity of more than 2,000 square feet are competing with others which carry as little as 500. but the race is run on an intricate handicap system.

Time of passage is expected to be between four and six days, and the early forecast (in view of the reported weather) was that a dour triangular contest might develop between Mistral, off scratch, Archina, and Winston Churchill.

But every skipper-as is the immemorial way of skippers-was supremely confident of his craft, and over all is the dominance of the sea and its moods. And each ship has vagaries to match the whimsy of the moment's weather.

The race is being held under the auspices of the Cruising Yacht Club of Sydney.

Although a number of offshore and passage races have been sailed around the coast in the past, and a number of notable matches between two vessels have been decided over long courses, no full scale distance race of this type has previously been organised.

So, according to those who are wise in these matters, the taut and eager fleet which sailed out of Sydney yesterday began the writing of a new and perhaps more brilliant chapter in the already proud story of Australia's windship sailormen.

As the yachts came to the starting line off the Quarantine Station flagstaff, the sheer austerity and cleanness of their rig, the precision and grace of their lines, the delicate balance of their movement upon the order of their helms, declared their breeding and their purpose.

Veterans of Sail

Each was sure of her proper place in the hierarchy of sail, and each was manned by those who delight to joust with blue water.

Brilliant sunshine beat down on bleached canvas and holystoned decks; brasswork caught and held the sun's fire; rope and spar tensed to meet the challenge of the strong breeze, and proud, impatient forefeet stamped a white path in the surging water.

Sydney has not seen a grander, prouder, or more beautiful sisterhood of sail.

Crews average about six men; Mistral carries eight. Many are veterans of the open water and in experience the men of the Winston Churchill- as an instance-are rich.

The Tasmanian came to Sydney last Thursday, having, according to her crew, broken the record for the journey by three hours. Previously it stood at four days 11 hours.

"Skipper" Coverdale is sailing his ship with his left arm in plaster he broke it before leaving Hobart.

Some crew members have made the passage as many as five times, but never as race entrains. They are all confident on the Churchill that the return journey can be made in less than five days, but the cutter -as are all the competitors-is provisioned for about a month at sea.

Wind and water respect only the provident and the foresighted.

1,000 Miles of Sea

Two of the crew of the Wayfarer, Messrs. F. Harris and Bill Leverman, called across the water, to a

bouncing Press launch that they had "brought, the ship, up the coast, last year;" other men of the fleet have made wide, and often bitter, acquaintacne with deepwater sailing in small craft.

Although the distance of the race is stated at'635 miles, the competitors may have to cross a thousand miles of troubled water before they reach their destination-the ocean pier at Hobart, where times will be adjusted according to the declared principle and the placings announced.

Skippers, though notably optimistic about the swiftness of their passage, are mindful of the fact that the last yacht to sail from Sydney to Hobart was nearly four weeks on the way. Small wonder some poured libations-rationed libations, as becomes these days of rationing-to the gods of the wind and the wave.

Escort of Small Craft

Hundreds of small craft-some the craziest and flimsiest of sail-bearing canoes-followed the fleet through the Heads into the challenging surge of the ocean, but the start was smooth and untroubled, and no ship, despite the crowds of eager, sightseeing boatmen, lost an inch of paint.

In Tasmania, the yachts will take part in important regattas, after which each of the New South Wales craft will make its own way back to Sydney in its own untroubled time.

Latest reports indicate that it is unlikely the boats will meet with flying fish weather all the way down indeed, the weatherwise were moved to prophesy that fresh to strong squalls were on their way, with rising seas in attendance.

This dismayed none, enlivened a few, and satisfied all that there would be, in their venturing, no monotony of calm water.

Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 9 January 1946, page 2

09 Jan 1946 - Detailed Story of the Hobart Yacht Race - Trove (nla.gov.au)

By a Special Yachting Correspondent in Hobart who has made a close study of the ocean race.

Sydney Morning Herald 8th January 1946

The crew of winning yacht Rani

Australia's great ocean race, sailed from Sydney to Hobart during the past two weeks has been concluded. In spite of having encountered unusually boisterous weather, eight of the nine yachts which started reached Tasmania safely.

Such equipment as suffered damage was, generally speaking, running gear and, in particular, a considerable number of sails blew out or split. These incidents were to be expected to some extent in heavy weather off shore, but they were much aggravated by the war-time shortage of canvas which made the general age of the competitors' sails above average.

11 days, 6 hours and 20 minutes after it departed Sydney, Wayfarer sailed into Hobart, drawing to a close the remarkable story of the inaugural Sydney to Hobart race.

The crew of winning yacht Rani are pictured on their arrival in Hobart on January 1, 1946 CREDIT:SYDNEY MORNING HERALD ARCHIVES

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