Dream win for Ichi Ban

Skipper elated at finally claiming handicap honour

HE’S had three different boats in the past three years, and after winning this year’s Sydney to Hobart yacht race on handicap Matt Allen says he will finally stick with this one.

Allen’s 60-footer Ichi Ban finished sixth on handicap in 2015, his JV52 Ichi Ban finished fifth last year, and his brand new TP52, also called Ichi Ban, claimed the Tattersalls Trophy yesterday.

The latest Ichi Ban (which means No. 1 in Japanese) also went into the record books as clocking the fastest race time (1d19h10m20s) by a conventionally ballasted boat — no water ballast or canting keel.

“It’s a dream come true for us all. An amazing experience,” Allen said.

“You can only imagine how rough and how wet these boats are to sail at that speed through the ocean.

“We sailed a great race. It has always been a dream of mine to win the Sydney-Hobart as skipper of my own boat and the dream is fulfilled.”

The Sydney sailor made his Hobart debut in 1983.

Despite getting his hands on the Tattersalls Cup three times — to hand it over to the winning skipper as Commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia — this year was completely different.

“It’s nice to be on the receiving end this time,” Allen said.

The 2016 Ichi Ban was on track to win but stalled on the Derwent.

“After being becalmed for five hours last year, we came up the Derwent this year and got to the Garrow Light and parked. No wind at all,” he said.

“We sat there for 25 minutes and we were thinking here we go again.

“It’s a tricky place to sail — probably the reason Tasmanians are such great sailors.”

As the winning skipper, Allen was presented with a Rolex watch. “In a way it’s the most expensive Rolex you could ever get,” Allen said.

“It is worth every cent and every bit of time you invest in this race, because it is such an amazing race and such a tough and demanding race and every year it throws up something different. It is a global race and one of the very few on the front page of the newspaper.”

Ichi Ban blew out two spinnakers on the way to Hobart, critical in a downwind race where kites ruled.

“We were starting to run out of spinnakers,” Allen said.

“Luckily our last one was designed to be really strong and if that had broken we wouldn’t be standing here right now.

“To win this race you’ve got to be good, and you’ve also got to be lucky.”