Stewart Thwaites arrives in Hobart disappointed but philosophical

• NEWS
• 28 Dec, 2004 06:33:00 PM

Stewart Thwaites arrives in Hobart disappointed but philosophical

“The bow felt like it was facing the sky and a good proportion of the keel was out of the water," said principal helmsman Gavin Brady.

“Coming the last two hundred miles by bus wasn’t the way we planned it.”  These were the wry thoughts of Stewart Thwaites, the owner/skipper of the New Zealand supermaxi Konica Minolta as he faced the press in Hobart.

Earlier in the day, Konica Minolta, seemingly with the finishing line of the 60th Anniversary Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race there for the taking, fell off a massive wave and out of the race. 

“We had a relatively hard night (in gale force winds and big seas) but nothing we couldn’t handle.  But we launched off a ten metre wave with no back,” Thwaites explained. 

“The bow felt like it was facing the sky and a good proportion of the keel was out of the water,” Konica Minolta’s principal helmsman and America’s Cup sailor, Gavin Brady added.  “There was that lonely five seconds while we waited to fall.  You hope for a soft landing but…”

When the twenty-seven ton yacht smashed down into the bottom of the wave’s trough “we heard a crack but we were not sure what it was,” Thwaites said.

“It was an all hands on deck situation.”  They found that the cabin top had creased between the mast and the sleave of her enormous canting keel, where there are intense structural pressures on the boat. 

For an hour the crew attempted to slow down the yacht as they braced the damaged area, but with the boat head on to the big swell and the back and forth motion bending the hull, Thwaites and Brady decided that if they continued sailing there was a real possibility the keel could fall off the boat.

The sails were lowered and they motored towards the Tasmanian coast.  Their race was over.  “It was a hard decision,” Thwaites said.  “We agonised over it, but the consensus was that it was dangerous (to continue).”  They moored Konica Minolta in Binnalong Bay and came the last leg to Hobart by bus.

Ironically the damage occurred just five miles from relative security.  Brady explained that during the night, after a day of playing cat and mouse with the Melbourne supermaxi Skandia, Konica Minolta took a gamble and sailed very aggressively during the dark, stormy hours. “Normally at that stage of the race you would have everybody below resting but we kept everyone on deck.”

The tactic allowed them to open a substantial lead and this morning, with Skandia forced to retire and no other boat close enough to threaten their lead, they decided to head toward more settled waters close to the coast.  “We were only five miles from smooth water when the boat broke,” Brady said.

Thwaites described the tough conditions in Bass Strait as similar to those in 2000, his first Rolex Sydney Hobart.  “This race was like a wrap up of the last four.  Water spouts, whales, sunfish, two-inch deep hail on the deck and sunny skies and fast downwind sailing, all in one race.”   In Bass Strait they encountered two waterspouts, one they seriously had to run away from.

Brady said last night this was the toughest he’d faced in seven Hobarts.

While they were forced to withdraw when so far in front, Thwaites was philosophical.  “Last year was much more disappointing (when he trailed Skandia over the line by fourteen minutes after an epic match race all the way from Sydney).  It is not as though we made any bad tactical decisions.”

So will he be back?   “Every year I say it’s my last time.  Yes, I will probably be back,” he smiles ruefully.