Wild Rose

As ‘Hicko’ gets set to start his 37^th Hobart journey, he has, as usual, campaigned Wild Rose to the max in the lead-up to the big race with some excellent results. He sailed the Farr 43 to 13^th overall in last year’s race - and the result is a lot better than it first appears, because Wild Rose, along with Love & War, beat all Division 2 and 3 boats overall – and the two were first (for a second straight year) and second in IRC Division 4 respectively. Despite the yacht’s 28 years, is a good bet for overall honours.

In the 2013 Audi IRC Australian Championship, Wild Rose was second in IRC Division 3 and went on to place  fifth overall in the 2013 Gosford-Lord Howe Island race after winning the previous year. Was third overall and won Division 4 of the 2013 Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race the first race of the Blue Water Pointscore Series (BWPS), and won Races 2, 3 and 4, the Flinders Islet, Bird Island and Cabbage Tree Island races, for a a commanding BWPS lead.

Hickman is a big supporter of the BWPS and has won it four times; with his own boat and as sailing master on two others. He and the Wild Rose crew are looking forward to challenging for it again, after finishing fourth last year and third in the Cape Byron Pointscore (ORCi category of the BWPS).

Each year, Hicko trains up a mix of male and female sailors, blooding them for offshore racing aboard what was originally Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats. In partnership with Bruce Foye and Lance Peckman, Hickman won the 1993 Hobart race overall under IOR (there was also an IMS overall winner, Cuckoos Nest); it was the race’s swansong for IOR.  

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