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Life after Koomooloo

Life after Koomooloo
Margaret Rintoul II after the start of the Audi Sydney Southport 2007

Life after Koomooloo

Freebairn says he thinks about his old love every day. He’s not sure what will go though his mind when he and his crewmates sail past Narooma this year.

At 9.30am, on the second day of last year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, about 60 miles off the New South Wales town of Narooma, Queenslander Mike Freebairn’s world began to come apart at the seams. Koomooloo, the beautiful timber ocean racing veteran that he and his father had so painstakingly restored was sinking. 

The news rocked the sailing world. This former Hobart winner was a legend, a living piece of Australian ocean racing history. Even at 38 years of age, Koomooloo was still competitive. During the night she had been leading the 2006 fleet on corrected time, and the race was shaping up as one ready made for the strong, up-wind IOR style boat of her era. In the end another IOR veteran, Love and War was to take the silverware. Mike Freebairn was shattered.

“I always knew we could win a race with Koomooloo and we were in a great position” Freebairn says. “To have the chance of winning taken away was almost as bad as losing her. We are all here to win.”

In the days after the disaster an ashen Freebairn roamed the docks of Hobart. It all seemed so surreal. But even then he was beginning to think about where to go next, and what it would take. 

“Koomooloo was our life. It wasn’t disrespectful. I put every penny I ever had into her, but we wanted to keep going. And another racing legend had come onto the market.  Margaret Rintoul ll.

Margaret Rintoul ll was built in the same boat yard and in the same year as Koomooloo, 1968, and started its life as the first of Syd Fischer’s Ragamuffins. He had sailed her to victory in the 1971 Fastnet Race. She represented Australia in three Admiral’s Cups and has raced to Hobart 21 times. An S&S 49, with trademark Sparkman and Stephens tumblehome and refined reverse transom, she is as much sculpture as sailing boat.

“Every time I came down to Sydney with Koomooloo I used to walk along the CYCA dock to look at her,” Freebairn says. “We searched all round the world for a replacement for Koomooloo but really it was just to confirm that Margaret Rintoul ll was the right choice.”  So Margaret Rintoul ll became Spirit of Koomooloo.

“We’re very lucky she was available, otherwise I might be sailing Etchells now. Fortunately the boat is in pretty good condition, with plenty of work left in the sails. Our first race with her was the Southport and we won our division.

“It was good when we sailed her as our own boat for the first time. It made everything feel concrete. There is a life after death.”

Spirit of Koomooloo is a bigger, more powerful, heavier boat than her namesake.  “She is more comfortable in a breeze. In Koomooloo we got thrown around a lot.  She is also nicer to drive downwind. Koomooloo was fast to windward but she was a real arm wrestle down hill. You always felt there was a potential for disaster.

“Because of the way the new boat rates, though, it has shifted our potential from winning the Rolex Sydney Hobart overall to winning our division.  We always felt that given the right conditions we could win in Koomooloo, so it feels different coming to Sydney this year. We have put in the same preparation but we are more relaxed.

“Koomooloo gave us a lot. She was our life. We lost a lot but we’re grateful for the opportunities she gave us. We put so much work into her, when I stepped off her for the last time I looked at her and thought she was looking as good as she was ever going to be. We had finished restoring her. Now the new boat has given dad a new lease on life.”

Freebairn says he thinks about his old love every day. He’s not sure what will go though his mind when he and his crewmates sail past Narooma this year. He still has a picture of Koomooloo as a screen saver on his mobile phone. “So have most of the other guys.” - Jim Gale