No yachting event in the world attracts such huge media coverage – except, of course, the America’s Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race – than does the start on Sydney Harbour. And the others only happen every four or five years. Over those years, the Rolex Sydney Hobart and Cruising Yacht Club of Australia have had marked influence on international ocean yacht racing. The club has influenced the world in race communications and sea safety, maintaining the highest standards of yacht construction, rigging and stability for ocean racing yachts. The club’s members have also fared well in major ocean racing events overseas, with victories in the Admiral’s Cup, Kenwood Cup, One Ton Cup, the Fastnet Race and the BOC Challenge solo race around the word, not to mention the America’s Cup. As the then Governor of Tasmania, Sir Guy Green, observed at the prize giving for the 2001 race, it is indeed an egalitarian event, attracting yachts as small as 30-footers and as big as 98-footers, sailed by crews who range from weekend club sailors to professionals from the America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race circuits. In the earliest years of the Sydney Hobart Race all the yachts were built from timber - heavy displacement cutters, sloops,
yawls, schooners and ketches designed more for cruising than racing. The increasing popularity of the 628 nautical Christmas-New Year sail south to Hobart quickly began to attract new designs and innovative ideas in boat-building, sails and rigs, dacron sails and aluminium masts and in the early 1950s, the first boats built of GRP (glass reinforced plastic) or fibreglass as is the more common phrase. Then came aluminium, steel (mostly home-built) and even one maxi yacht built of ferro cement. Innovative Australian yacht designers such as the Halvorsen brothers, Trygve and Magnus, and the late Allan Payne and Bob Miller (Ben Lexcen) produced faster boats and the race was on to create line and overall handicap winners. Prof. Peter Joubert, a part-time designer of stout cruiser/racers, and John King were other Australians who produced winning boats. Following in their wake are currently successful designers such as Iain Murray and his partners, Andy Dovell and Ian “Fresh” Burns, along with Scott Jutson, David Lyons and Robert Hick. New Zealander Bruce Farr, now based on the US, led the move towards light Best of Australia
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