Sydney to Hobart multihulls

It's that time of year again.

The question was asked on another forum why no multihulls in the race. I remember they were allowed in one year with lots of breakages and as I recall at least one death, but I can't find anything online and since my strokes my memory isn't what it was.

Does anyone recall the infamous event ? is there anything online documenting it or has it been erased from history ?

 

Not since 1987 when I sailed it on Verbatim (Crowther 40 tri) with Cathy, Ian and another.
We started outside the Heads 40 minutes after Sovereign (83', the biggest maxi in the world at the time with a hot shot crew). Northerly breeze, we passed them just after Botany Bay were miles ahead when we got to Tassie. Breeze went south and increased, they caught us just before Storm Bay, were ahead going up the Derwent before the breeze died. We bought up the new breeze, went past them at about 20 knots, then stopped as well. They went east, we went west, they crossed 20 minutes ahead. An unofficial moral victory ;-) and by far the most comfortable of my 7 Hobarts. Despite Ian being a Tassie native, we were completely ignored by the media and organisers. It was the same story when he and Cathy did the race in Twiggy (31' tri) in 1980 or 81.

 

Some awesome and pretty impressive vintage footage of that Crowther charging hard! I dig the soundtrack too.

 

I seem to remember Verbatim doing circle work around a maxi heading south at one point, the channel 7 cameras were doing their best not to show it, they kept panning away and only half framing the maxi to avoid the tri but the wake told the story. It was hilarious.

P.S. Its a crime that boat wasn't put in a museum before a succession of vandals got hold of it.

 

They have never been allowed in the race. In about 1966, four started in a parallel race. Two finished. The winner was later lost, with multiple deaths.

 

It's not really surprising that Verbatim was ignored. A Formula 1 car could do the Bathurst V8 race faster too; a kitefoiler could beat all the cats in the world's top small cat (Texel) too; a decent recumbent bike rider could beat the Tour de France field. A good full-size rugby team would win the Rugby 7s world championship if they were allowed to compete too, but who cares? It's all irrelevant since the Hobart is not about multis, just like many multi races are not for sportsboats, skiffs, kites or boards.

As a comparison, a few years ago the world's biggest multi race finally allowed windsurfers. The windsurfers aren't allowed on the same start, and the press releases about the cat race regularly ignores it when the windsurfers go around the course faster.

The Fastnet has been open to multis for years, and the number of boats that do it (apart from the pro French boats, which won't come to Hobart) is minute. Despite what people have said, throwing open the classics to multis does not mean that they will become popular as offshore racing boats.

When offshore racing as we know it first started, it did so largely off its own bat. The offshore sailors created the RORC, the CCA, the CYCA etc. They did not demand that the existing clubs run races for them. When windsurfers, kites and other new forms of craft arrived, they created their own events and did not demand to take over the Moth worlds or other dinghy events. That's the way it goes if you want to be succesful - you make your own event.

My last offshore season was on a shorthanded tri, by the way, so this is not the POV of someone who believes multis shouldn't go offshore. It's just that there's no case that says that all sporting events, or all major sporting events, should be thrown open to competitors using different sorts of gear. We have events just for beach cats, just for shorthanded boats, just for windsurfers, just for kites, etc etc etc and no one complains until one sort of craft (ballasted monos) wants to do exactly the same thing and have events just for ballasted monos. That's discriminatory and just weird.

 

@CT249; I agree.

 

The footage was on the harbour a week before the Hobart. Sovereign was returning after finishing a race, Verbatim sailed a doughnut round them. Neither boat was racing but the maxi stepped up a gear when they saw the tri approaching. Didn't help. ;-). Long time CYCA commodore was driving the maxi, which certainly did not help the 'let's race together' pundits.

Agree about the vandals, it was a pretty special boat, arguably with the best offshore record of any short handed (maybe crewed as well) Australian ocean racer at the time, and maybe since. It was certainly a lot of fun to sail, and provided a lot of ideas on what to keep, change and discard when I started designing harryproas.

CT,
Thanks for the '66 race info.
Maybe one needed to be part of the Sydney multi/mono race scenes at the time to appreciate the humour of the 12m balsa/cedar tri built on a shoe string in a farm shed with 2 girls, 2 guys in the crew creaming the world's latest and greatest 25m racing mono with the best gear and crew (25 of them) money could buy.

Few offshore sailors at the time thought Verbatim would make it to Hobart, even fewer that it would be quicker than the entire fleet. Your analogies would be more accurate if you used a moncycle without team support winning the TdF, a team of 3 amateurs winning the rugby sevens, a family sedan winning Bathurst without a pit crew and an Opti winning Texel.

I doubt any of the current crop of Aus multis would beat the super maxis with their diesel powered canting keels and winches, but it would be interesting to see.

 

@RobDenney that ex French ORMA tri
would do them I’d think.

 

Rob, I did that Hobart, and 1980 when Ian and Kath took Twiggy down. I remember checking Twiggy out in Hobart. I was also sailing on another Twiggy a bit and regularly on Wahoo with Lock at the time. Part of the shoe string for Verbatim came from my mum's cast off C10 moulds or plug. I can't recall anyone being particularly amazed that even Twiggy made it down; as far as I can recall everyone just thought it was a good effort.

I don't think that anyone thought that a tri was like a monocycle or a sedan. Mono sailors appreciated that multis were normally faster but didn't care, just as none of us in the F18 fleet really care if we get beaten by a kitefoiler. Some mono sailors disliked multis but then plenty of multi sailors sling crap the other direction.

 

@CT249 Twiggy ?
Never mind, senior moment, didn’t comprehend dates.

 

Thank you for the replies. Everything takes me longer now so this is my first chance to get back to this.

The club can make any rules they want, but the reality is there is already classes within the race. The Brisbane to Gladstone has a multi class with no problems. Personally I've always assumed they are banned because "businessmen" who spend millions on carbon fiber canting keel flat bottomed super maxis would feel "inadequate" seeing their genital proxies standing still while a cat half the size and 1/10 the $ slip past them.

I watched the race every year when I was young, for as long as I can remember, but long before I started sailing I was wondering why there were no multihulls in the mix. (I was born in FNQ but grew up in sidinee)

I guess I'm just not the right sort of person to join the cruising yacht club, nor associate with them.

Redreuben: Lock Crowther trimaran. LC as I recall mainly did tris before adding cats to his portfolio later, 69 I think were the the first cats ? My memory is rubbish now but maybe the internet will tell you.

 

Certainly would in their prime with a gun crew. No idea if either of these applies at the moment.

CT,
You missed my point. You compared Verbatim to a better option (15 people vs 7 a side, F1 vs Super cars, etc) in each of your examples. I was pointing out that you had it the wrong way round. Verbatim was very much the underdog.
We will have to agree to disagree about whether Aus offshore mono sailors 34 years ago thought multis were unsafe and not suitable for Bass Strait and the Roaring 40's.
Cath(y), not Kath.

Guzzi,
B-G is 2 separate races. Has been since the beginning except for a couple(?) of unsuccessful attempts at amalgamation.

 

Team Australia smashes Sydney to Hobart passage record https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/168099/New-Sydney-to-Hobart-passage-record

 

Aren't they run together ? I thought I saw them all lining up together at the start ? I don't know much about yacht racing. I only did it once and it scarred me for life. Mind that was on a keelboat back in the late 80's...