Return to Hobart, but this time like a gentleman

• NEWS
• 23 Dec, 2004 06:40:00 AM

Return to Hobart, but this time like a gentleman

“The southern Ocean became a lonely old place,” Quinn remembers, as the crippled boat waited for help.

When Patrick Quinn sails his Swan 46 Leila into Constitution Dock sometime between Christmas and the New Year, it will be twelve years since he was last in town.  And while he expects that he will be thoroughly delighted when he gets there, he hopes that he doesn’t experience anything like the feeling of relief that pervaded his last Hobartian landfall.

Sixty five year old Quinn didn’t start sailing until quite late in life.  Not until he was fifty.  Yet while he may have been a latecomer he certainly started in at the deep end.

Chey Blythe had come up with the idea of a race around the world the wrong way, which most other people thought was a crazy idea but which appealed to the novice Patrick.  So he signed up to what was then the British Steel Challenge, and headed for Hobart via Cape Horn.  “The first race was exciting because the rest of the world watched with bated breath,” Quinn recalls.  “They all expected the worst.”

At 58º south and 2,400 miles from the nearest landfall the worst did happen - the mast came crashing down.  “The southern Ocean became a lonely old place,” he remembers, as the crippled boat waited for help. 

Eventually a container ship bound for South America was found in Wellington and loaded up with enough fuel to get the yacht to land under her own power.  The freighter finally found the stricken yacht on Christmas Day.  “We met up with the ship on Christmas day and her hull colour was Santa red.  It was a fantastic display of seamanship the way they came alongside us and transferred the fuel on a return line.  The final thing they sent us was a Christmas tree to cheer us up.”

Despite the circumstances of getting there, or perhaps because the ordeal was at last over, Quinn was taken with Hobart.  “I thought wouldn’t it be great to come back, to do the same thing but in a leisurely way.  A gentleman’s passage.”

Fast-forward twelve years and Quinn is back at sea, but this time on a gentle two and a half year cruise around the globe. In Newport Rhode Island he swapped his aging Hans Christian cruising yacht for a Swan 46 and calculated that he would be in Sydney some time around Christmas.  So why not do the 60th anniversary 2004 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race?

Certainly you can’t do it in much more style than a Swan, often referred to us the Rolls Royce of yachting, though Patrick says he was a reluctant Swan owner.  “I didn’t want the cache of being a Swan owner.  You are expected to keep up the Swan standards.  I’ve learned a lot about the upper echelons of being a boat owner since buying a Swan.  My skipper, Ross Murray insists that everything has to be perfect.  We got into Sydney and Ross was horrified that we couldn’t hose the boat down.  There may be a drought but for heavens sake, this is a Swan.  I sign a lot of cheques now,” Quinn jokes.

When word about the race got back to Wales, where Quinn now lives, he was swamped with volunteers from local sailing mates, and seven Welshmen have flown into Australia for the event.  “We normally cruise with four or five.  It is crowded with six, and now I’ll have a crew of ten.

“They all race in the Irish sea, so while we are entered in the cruising division we want to get there as quickly as we can.  But I’m gobsmacked and overawed at the quality of the boats that are going against us.  If we get out the Heads and can still see them in the distance it will be a surprise.” 

But it is the sea rather than the competition that really has Patrick hooked.  “I prefer cruising,” he says. “The great thing is to arrive in a place that was built in the first place around the sea.  Built because of the geography and the relationship to the sea.  When you sail in you are arriving by the front door.  When you fly into a city you come in through the back door.

It is going to be interesting.  The jovial, self effacing cruiser with his regular cruising crew who have taken a year to get here plus his seven Welsh racing mates who have flown in specially for “the Big Event”, all in the midst of one of the most full on, competitive ocean racing events on the planet.   “I’ll just sit in the back.  Nobody is to get angry.  No shouting.  We have to enjoy ourselves,” says the man with the chequebook.