Amazing gift saves family’s race dream
LESS than a week out from the Sydney to Hobart and the family campaign of veteran sailor Richard Grimes and his three children looked to have run aground due to serious keel issues with their yacht Hasta La Vista.
On Wednesday, after a barrage of emails and phone calls, the campaign is back on track thanks to the generosity of a man they didn’t even know and Sydney to Hobart race officials approving a late boat swap.
Neutral Bay builder Richard Williams has come to their aid, offering his boat Calibre to the family to race after the keel on the 38-footer they bought just over a month ago failed to pass a mandatory safety inspection and could not be repaired in time for the Boxing Day start.
The Sydney 38 is a one-design class so the swap was cleared by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia which conducts the annual race.
“We were organising a spare rudder through him but don’t actually know him,” said former F18 pilot Grimes.
“But when I told him what had happened, he said ‘take mine, take my boat, you are supporting the youth sailors and the Royal Australian Air Force’.
“It’s an unbelievable offer. We wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise.’’
Williams said he was happy to help get the campaign back on water.
“When he told me the bad news I just asked ‘why aren’t you going, take my boat’,’’ he said. “It’s a boat. I’m not giving him my left arm. It was just going to be sitting in the pen. It’s nice to make everyone happy.’’
The owner of Williams Interiors, which does fit-outs on buildings such as the Radisson Hotel in Sydney’s CBD, said his family has a RAAF connection through an uncle.
John Williams DFC was a POW in the Stalag Luft III camp in Germany and was one of the 76 who tunnelled their way out of the camp.
“My sister Louise wrote a book about it, A True Story of the Great Escape,’’ he said.
“So over the years we have been to lots of RAAF memorials.’’
Grimes, from Lake Macquarie, twins Jess and Tom, 23, and their sister Rebecca 26, are doing their first race together as a family.
It will be race No 31 for Grimes who is one of the experienced sailors in the fleet.
The family are using the final days before the start on Sydney Harbour to transfer safety and communications gear off their original boat, change the name on the hull, organise radio checks and also head out to sea to do a 24-hour qualifier which is one of the rules of the Sydney to Hobart introduced after the 1998 storm which claimed the lives of six sailors.
“It’s a great Christmas story, this sort of generosity,’’ said Grimes, who has fellow top gun pilot Matt Hall racing with him to Hobart as well.