• DIVISION WINNERS
• Wild Oats XI wins the treble
• Old lady of the sea Koomooloo beats her own time
• WINNER'S RACE REPORT: Wild Oats XI overcomes late sail drama
• RUNNER-UP RACE REPORT: Rueful Crichton reflects on what might have been

DIVISION WINNERS: (30/12/2005)

• The Overall Winner and Division Winners of the 61st Rolex Sydney Hobart have been announced at a dockside presentation ceremony in Hobart this afternoon.
  Wild Oats XI owner Bob Oatley, skipper Mark Richards and crewmembers, including Steve 'Mothy' Jarvin (who now has a personal tally of 5 line honours wins, 2 race records and one Overall Win) and local Tasmanian Chris Harmsen, collected the Tattersalls Trophy for Overall Winner and medals for the 24 crew members. Wild Oats XI now joins only five other yachts to have won both the Tattersalls Trophy for Overall Winner and the Illingworth Trophy for Line Honours. Wild Oats XI also took out the IRC Division A.
• Ireland’s Gerard O’Rourke won IRC Division B with his Cookson 50 Chieftain, completing his dream of competing in a Rolex Sydney Hobart. His family travelled with him to Australia to watch the start in Sydney and to welcome him in Hobart.
• Veteran sailor Lou Abrahams capped off his 43rd race by winning IRC Division C and the Sydney 38 Division with Challenge. Finishing in Hobart today, Lou said that at this stage he planned to do one more Hobart to equal old friend John Bennetto’s standing record of 44 races.
• Wot’s Next skipper Graeme Wood has marked his initiation into Rolex Sydney Hobart ocean racing with a win in IRC Division D.
• The oldest boat in the fleet, 37 year old Ray White Koomooloo, sailed into Hobart at noon today to win IRC Division E. The battle for Division E went down to the wire as Wild Rose had to wait 10 agonising hours to see Ray White Koomooloo sneak in just ahead of deadline to take the title. Ray White Koomooloo won Overall in 1968 with an elapsed time 4 days, 10 hours, 26 min and 52sec. This year she bettered that time by more than eleven hours to finish in 3 days, 22hours, 51min and 39sec.
• Japan-based David Ferrall and his yacht Pekljus won the Performance Handicap System (PHS) Division, a pleasing result in their second Rolex Sydney Hobart after retiring in last year’s challenging conditions.

Wild Oats XI wins the treble

• Wild Oats XI has been confirmed as handicap winner of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, making her the first yacht to win the fabled treble since Captain John Illingworth and his yacht Rani won the inaugural race across Bass Strait 60 years ago.
• Bob Oatley built this hi-tech multi-million dollar maxi to win line honours. To break the course record was an added bonus. To win the Tattersalls Cup for fastest yacht under IRC handicap was beyond his wildest dreams. There was a tear in his eye yesterday as he looked down the list of past winners engraved on the base of the JJ Illingworth Trophy, the prize for first boat to Hobart. He flew back to Sydney this morning, but how must he be feeling now to have won the most coveted trophy of all, the Tattersalls Cup?
• Geoff Lavis, Commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, confirmed this afternoon that none of the boats still racing could challenge Wild Oats's position at the top of the IRC handicap leaderboard. "The oldest boat in this year's fleet, Ray White Koomooloo, which was Overall Winner in 1968, has been the closest competitor to threaten Wild Oats XI all day," said Commodore Lavis. "It shows that any well-sailed, well-founded boat has a realistic chance of winning this race."
• The Commodore paid tribute to Bob Oatley and the crew of Wild Oats XI, who launched this state-of-the-art 98-foot maxi less than a month ago. "This treble has eluded all past competitors but now finally it's happened. It's a difficult thing to do and how many years before it happens again, well that's anyone's guess. This year the weather was quite benign, and quite kind to these big boats. You can't expect that too often in this race."

Old lady of the sea Koomooloo beats her own time

• At 12 minutes past noon today, a beautiful varnished timber yacht sailed back into the winners circle of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race after an absence of 37 years. As Ray White Koomooloo crossed the finish line and entered Constitution Dock to take Division E handicap honours in the race, old heads thought back to the same location in 1968 when Koomooloo won the Sydney Hobart after four days, 10 hours at sea.
• Another old head looked on and thought it was a job well done. Don Freebairn (73) restored Koomooloo after she had passed through seven other pairs of hands since Dennis O’Neil won the Hobart race with the Kaufman 41 design all those years ago.
• Freebairn had wanted to be aboard Ray White Koomooloo this year, having missed out last year when he dislocated his shoulders after tumbling through the forward hatch of his boat before the 2004 race. Ray White Koomooloo retired last year after leading her division into Bass Strait.
• Today, Don Freebairn saw the fruits of his labours – an eight-year restoration program to bring Ray White Koomooloo back to her glory days, including 20 coats of varnish on her Honduras mahogany hull.
• Don Freebairn has a love of timber boats. Eight years he would sit on the waterfront at Manly in Brisbane and look at Koomooloo. “I bought it off an owner who had had it for 13 years,” he said. “It was a little bit tired and needed a new owner.”
• He and son Michael relaid the deck, refurbished the mast, replaced every nut and bolt. Today, they beat Koomooloo’s 1968 time by 12 hours.
• “It surprises us, but they sailed the boat pretty well then and we sailed it pretty well now,” Michael Freebairn said. “We’ve kept the boat pretty original. It is pretty much as it was - same mast, same keel.”
• Ray White Koomooloo suffered no damage – to its gear or to its sails. “It’s as we got on it,” he said. At one stage, the old yacht challenged the new maxi Wild Oats XI for lead on corrected time in the race. “They had pretty good weather but we were out there for a bit longer so we saw a bit more weather,” said Freebairn. “Running downwind on this boat, its lock to lock (steering) and after about half an hour you are pretty much buggered.”
• Though his ocean racing days are over Don Freebairn will get as much satisfaction from the win as his son. “Now I sit on the dock and watch her - I get a buzz out of that,” he said.

WINNER'S RACE REPORT: Wild Oats XI overcomes late sail drama

• The brand new 30 metre maxi from Sydney, Wild Oats XI crossed the finish line at 10 seconds past 8 am this morning, taking 1 day 18 hours, 40 minutes and 10 seconds to complete the course. She has slashed an hour and 7 minutes hours off the record set by Nokia in 1999.
  Surrounded by about 50 spectator craft Wild Oats XI crossed the line in a fresh 15 knot north-westerly, in what amounted to a perfect day for sailing on the Derwent River. Several thousand people lined the waterfront to welcome the sailors in.
• It was a finish full of drama. With around 5 miles to go Wild Oats XI blew the top batten of its mainsail and, in the words of skipper Mark Richards “everything went wrong with it.” Fearful that the flogging sail would tear itself to pieces the crew frantically dropped it to the deck while they raise a bigger headsail to compensate.
• Yet despite sailing under headsail alone the giant maxi still crossed the line at around 12 knots, demonstrating the amazing power of these giant yachts. Earlier in the morning the boom vang had ripped off the mast on the last gybe in Storm Bay.
• On shore, Mark Richards was philosophical about the last minute drama: “we thought it was just too easy going and something had to go wrong and it did. It doesn’t matter, we still finished, broke the record and the boys are very happy.”
• Wild Oats was 15 miles ahead of the identical length Alfa Romeo.
• It has been an extraordinary achievement for Mark Richards and his crew, who had only weeks to find out how to get the most out of this complex racing machine. It has been clear that they have still been learning about the boat as the race has progressed.
• Wild Oats XI had led the fleet out of Sydney harbour on Boxing Day after showing exceptional speed in the smooth waters of the harbour. But within an hour Alfa Romeo edged past her, a setback Wild Oats XI navigator Adrienne Cahalan attributed to the fact that they were still learning which headsail to use in the choppy conditions.
• For the remainder of the first day the two yachts raced neck and neck down the NSW coast, with Skandia well ahead of the record pace, sticking relentlessly to the rhumb line, the shortest route to Hobart. But as the breeze died early into the evening the record seemed to slip away from them.
• The turning point of the race came at around 5 am on Tuesday morning. Alfa Romeo followed Skandia out to sea looking for extra breeze, but Wild Oats XI veered the other way towards the coast. It was a big call, and it paid off. She found some breeze and took off, opening a twelve mile lead on Alfa Romeo.
• Adrienne Cahalan said after the race that she couldn’t understand why the other boats didn’t follow their lead, “I think Alfa Romeo was looking for more pressure (wind) out to sea while we were looking for the favourable shift.” As the strengthening wind shifted to the north it was a procession back along the rhumb line, with no tactical options open to the unlucky Alfa Romeo.
• “(Helmsmen) Iain Murray, Gary Wiseman and Chris Harmsen had a great game plan. And we stuck to it - on the first night to stick inshore and it really paid dividends,” Richards said. “The next day we woke up to find ourselves ahead of everyone and it stayed that way. A great game plan, we stuck to it and it worked.”
• Throughout Tuesday the two boats steadily worked their way back into race record contention, with Alfa Romeo unable to run down her rival. Indeed by the end of the day Wild Oats XI had stretched her lead to 20 miles. “We knew if it was a downhill race we’d be hard to beat,” said Richards. “Alfa Romeo was faster for the first 12 hours but once we got the spinnaker on we took off.”
• In flat water the yachts reached incredible speeds, with Wild Oats XI hitting 32 knots on Tuesday night. Richards described it as a “hairy” night with “lots of gybing and heavy air running. It kept everyone awake, that’s for sure.” The race record was looking in the bag. It all depended on whether Wild Oats XI would find enough breeze on the Derwent River this morning to get to Hobart before the 9:08 am record deadline.
• So how did Richards feel when he crossed the finish line? “Huge, huge relief.”
• Did he really expect to beat Alfa Romeo with such a short preparation time? “To beat such a well oiled machine was a big ask, but we knew we had an equally good boat and an equally good crew.”

RUNNER-UP RACE REPORT: Rueful Crichton reflects on what might have been

• A disappointed Neville Crichton, skipper of Alfa Romeo, said the race was won and lost at Green Cape in South East Australia at daybreak yesterday.
  Alfa Romeo finished an hour and sixteen minutes behind race winner Wild Oats XI.
• With his boat just slightly ahead as the two maxis approached Bass Strait, Crichton opted to protect his position offshore and head out to sea while Wild Oats chose to head inshore.
• “We thought the breeze would come in from offshore”, Crichton said,”All our weather routing told us that it would be offshore. We made a blue. They got the breeze before us. They were doing 18 knots and we were doing 8.”
• From then on Alfa Romeo would have to play catch up in a downwind contest that was always going to be difficult. “Before the race we thought we were quicker upwind and they were a bit faster than us downwind. They have bigger spinnakers than us. We went for smaller spinnakers to get the rating advantage.
• “Wild Oats is slightly narrower and has more of a banana curve. It means she runs faster (downwind) and we are better upwind,” Crichton said. “Unfortunately this was a downwind race.”
• “We threw everything we could at it. We gybed in and out trying to make them follow us, hoping they would make a mistake. But they didn’t make a mistake.”
• Crichton was driving Alfa Romeo so hard that last night they blew out three spinnakers.
• Both Wild Oats’ Bob Oatley and Crichton concur that their boats, worth about $10 million each, designed by the same designers and both built by McConaghy’s yard in Sydney, are almost identical. Crichton launched Alfa Romeo six months ago. Wild Oats XI first hit the water in December.
• So is Crichton disappointed about being beaten by an almost identical boat?
• “Maybe they’re smarter than I am. Maybe if we had had someone we could have copied with a perfect boat we would have done the same. I would rather they hadn’t copied the boat but they’ve done it. That’s life unfortunately.
• “They sailed a good race and they beat us.”
• And will he be back with Alfa Romeo next year? “Right now not in a million years, but who knows…”