Cooney’s two powerful Sydney-Hobart chances
COMANCHE skipper Jim Cooney has the chance to potentially score an unusual Sydney to Hobart double in this year’s race.
Cooney owns two of the boats in the fleet of 157, supermaxi Comanche and the 70foot Maserati, which has been chartered by Polish yachtsmen.
Comanche is one of the favourites for line honours, but Cooney believes Maserati has a chance to be the first non-supermaxi to finish the race.
Maserati has good form in the Hobart race finishing sixth across the line under previous skipper Giovanni Soldini in 2015 and sixth the following year with Cooney in charge.
It didn’t contest the 2017 race as Cooney was on board Comanche – purchased shortly before the event, which the powerful supermaxi won on line honours after winning a protest against Wild Oats XI.
He put Maserati, above, up for charter for the 2018 race and had no takers, but had more success this year.
“There’s a Polish group coming out to sail with six or seven of my regular crew and it’s great to have two boats in the race,” Cooney said.
“I’m not saying I’m hedging my bets, but it’s interesting to see how they go.
“Maserati should do quite nicely, hopefully almost the first boat behind the 100s depending on the conditions.”
Maserati is far from the only chartered boat in a cosmopolitan fleet. While Cooney is of Irish descent, there will be an all-Irish crew aboard the chartered First 40 boat Breakthrough.
It has been temporarily named HYC Breakthrough in a nod to Howth Yacht Club, who the crew of nine belong to, and who will celebrate their 250th anniversary in 2020.
All the crew have participated in the Fastnet race but none have done a Hobart. Sailing master Kieran Jameson came close in 1991, but a broken mast prevented the boat he was on from doing the race.
He said the 2019 campaign had been a decade in the making and had attracted plenty of interest back home.
“The social media has been massive, "Jameson said. “The club set up a WhatsApp and we’ve got somebody managing it and as of Tuesday morning it hit over 260 people.”