John Bennetto retires after 44 Hobart Races

• NEWS
• 17 Nov, 2005 12:35:00 PM

John Bennetto retires after 44 Hobart Races

Tasmanian yachtsman John Bennetto has hung up his sea-boots after competing in 44 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Races, a record for Australia’s ocean classic and probably unequalled anywhere in the world.

Tasmanian yachtsman John Bennetto has hung up his sea-boots after competing in 44 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Races, a record for Australia’s ocean classic and probably unequalled anywhere in the world.

The veteran Hobartian and member of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania has put his highly successful ocean racer Quest on the market, although the boat is entered for this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart.

To mark his great career in ocean racing, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia has invited John to be its guest aboard the official starting vessel for the 2005 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race on 26 December 2005.  He also will  be a special guest at the race prize giving at The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania in Hobart on 1 January 2006.

John is an institution in ocean racing, notably the Rolex Sydney Hobart, extolling his wisdom and seamanship skills to many younger sailors who have crewed for him over the years.  He once said he would never ask one of his crew to do something he could not do himself, and the septuagenarian sailor could often be seen up the mast checking the rigging before the start of a Hobart Race.

He is a former winner of the CYCA’s prestigious Ocean Racing Veteran of the Year award and has been a regular visitor to Sydney to join his old sailing mates at the annual Quite Little Drink (Q.L.D.) at the Club.

John Bennetto began his ocean-racing career on the Tasmanian yacht Kintail in the 1947 Sydney Hobart as a very fit young man fresh from service in the Royal Australian Navy.  The following year he crewed about the overall handicap winner, Westward, another Tasmanian yacht.

Whilst he has not sailed in every race since 1947, John has competed in each of the past 21 races, 17 on them with his Frers 47 Mirrabooka II without a single retirement.  

Skippering Quest last year, he was forced to retire with steering problems – only his second retirement from the Rolex Sydney Hobart with a boat he has owned.  In fact, of the 44 races in which John has sailed, he has completed the course in all but three races. John had entered Quest for this year’s race but after a recent illness he decided that his sailing master, Tony Nicholas should still skipper the boat in the Rolex Sydney Hobart.

“I am deeply disappointed, but wiser counsels have prevailed and I am shore-bound for this race,” he said this week.

“But I am looking forward to being in Sydney to watch the start and back in Hobart for the finish,” the veteran yachtsman added.

Victoria’s Lou Abrahams now becomes the ‘most capped’ sailor in this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart and will be undertaking his 43rd race on board his yacht Challenge.  Now aged 78, he has won the race twice, in 1983 and 1989 with previous yachts of the same or similar name. Tony Cable is close behind in the experience stakes, preparing for his 42nd race aboard Philip’s Foote Witchdoctor which will be chalking up its 25th race. 

Quest, a Nelson/Marek 46, goes on the market with an outstanding career in ocean racing, including a first and a second overall in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, a victory in the 2003 IRC Australian Championship, and wins in the Sydney Mooloolaba and Sydney Gold Coast races, as well as wins at Hamilton Island.  

She has been meticulously maintained and was optimised to IRC racing a couple of seasons back with a sweptback-spreader, carbon-fibre mast.  She has a huge inventory of state-of-the-art sails.

Quest, with Tony Nicholas as skipper, will be racing in the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania’s Maria Island Race this coming weekend as part of her preparation for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race.  It is understood that if the boat is sold before this year’s Hobart Race she will be available for a new owner to sail in the blue water classic that starts on 26 December.