BACK ON THE HORSE

It’s 20 years since the tragic 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Despite the traumatic events many have continued sailing, finding it has been pivotal to the healing process

Now 20 years since the terror and tragedy in which six sailors lost their lives, we look back at the ill-fated 1998 Sydney-Hobart yacht race.

You have to get back on the horse. That’s how it was for many sailors after the catastrophic 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race in which six men died and 55 sailors were rescued in gigantic seas. It was the largest peacetime marine rescue in Australia. Of 115 boats that started, only 44 finished the race. For Steve Walker, one of the surviving crew of the Northern Tasmanian boat Business Post Naiad, that belief and his love of sailing helped him during the difficult years that followed — through his grief for his friends who died during the race, Phillip Skeggs and Bruce Guy, and the ensuing two-year coronial inquest in which he gave evidence.

Boxing Day marks the 20th anniversary of that harrowing race, but there will be no public commemorative service in honour of the sailors who died. Instead, there will be a minute’s silence among the competing sailors on the second day of the race, at the start of the scheduled 1500 hours fleet radio report — to honour those who died.

Over marine radio, for the entire fleet to hear, past Commodore David Kellett will read the words spoken by Hugo Van Kretschmar, then Commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, at the Hobart dockside memorial service held following the 1998 race:

“Mike Bannister, John Dean, Jim Lawler, Glyn Charles, Bruce Guy, Phil Skeggs. May the everlasting voyage you have now embarked on be blessed with calm seas and gentle breezes. May you never have to reef or change a headsail in the night. May your bunk be always warm and dry.”

Walker, like others, believes there is no need for a public memorial. “The families have moved on and it’s painful having the memories brought up again,” the 65-year-old sailor and sailmaker says. “We don’t need to do something formal.”

Walker, of Wynyard, had been sailing with the crew of Business Post Naiad for five years in the lead-up to that fateful day in 1998 when his boat capsized and lost its mast in the Tasman Sea. During the ensuing 12 hours, crewmates Phillip Skeggs drowned and Bruce Guy, the skipper and boat’s owner, suffered a fatal heart attack. The seven surviving sailors were winched to safety by the crew of the NRMA CareFlight helicopter.

“We’d been campaigning Business Post Naiad for probably five years,” says Walker, who has sailed in eight Sydney to Hobart yacht races, including three since 1998.

“The aim was to do a Sydney to Hobart,” he says. “We’d won a lot of races leading up to [the 1998 race]. We had an experienced and harmonious crew. We had the boat in good racing condition. We’d been doing long distance races around Bass Strait.

“I had been in winds of 65-75 knots three times before, but in 1998 we were in winds of up to 90 knots. I’d never been in those conditions before. The thing that really sticks with you is that nature has the final say. She’s all powerful. When nature builds up a storm and you’re in the middle of it, you’re at her mercy. We were in the eye of it. We went through both sides of it.”

For many Australians, the Sydney to Hobart is a legendary, beloved event that draws thousands of Tasmanians and visitors to the shore to cheer on the boats each year as they make their way to the finish line, through Storm Bay and the Derwent River to Constitution Dock.

The Sydney to Hobart has been organised and conducted by the Sydney-based Cruising Yacht Club of Australia since its inception in 1945, with the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania being

the finishing club. In Hobart, this involves about 100 volunteers who work 24/7 over the four-day event, many of whom are key to race control once the event starts. Folklore exists from the beginning, 74 years ago, when race sailors were said to have pulled up and rowed ashore at night to shoot rabbits for a feed. Each year the story bank expands to include new tales of drama and triumph, anguish and sorrow.

Tasmanian photographer Richard Bennett, who has photographed the race 43 consecutive times, has vivid memories of the 1998 race and nature’s power as it unfolded on December 27 and 28, 1998. He was photographing the fleet on its way south from a twin-engine aircraft he had chartered.

“The safety authority called our pilot and seconded the aircraft as a search aircraft because they had a may day call from the yacht Stand Aside,” says Bennett, whose photographs of that race were published worldwide. “My daughter was with me, doing film changes for me in the air, so we became observers.”

He remembers watching from the air as the crew of Stand Aside deployed a liferaft, which “cartwheeled on its side” before blowing away, and the relief at seeing them winched out of the water to safety by the crew of a rescue helicopter. Several mayday calls followed, including from the Winston Churchill, which they were told was sinking, and the Kingurra, which had lost a man overboard. “It was getting very late in the day and we found Kingurra and stationed above them until the helicopter arrived. And we didn’t think there would be a hope of finding the sailor. But when the helicopter made its last turn to leave they spotted the head bobbing up and down and winched him out of the water,” Bennett says.

“We were pretty elated that the system worked so well that it could actually retrieve a crewman in such seas. So we went back to Merimbula [on the south coast of NSW ] and then there was a mayday from Sword of Orion and they’d lost a man overboard.

“We thought this was just shocking when you consider the odds of getting a man out of the water and then another man is in only half an hour later. But Sword of Orion was so far out to sea they were beyond the reach of the rescue helicopters.”

In Hobart, at race headquarters at the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, that successful rescue followed so quickly by tragedy, was a defining moment for race director Robert “Biddy” Badenach. “I will never forget the afternoon I was in the race centre down at the yacht club when the proverbial hit the fan in Bass Strait,” says Badenach, who is race finish co-ordinator at this year’s event. “It was tragic. When we heard that Glyn Charles of Sword of Orion had been lost [after the successful rescue mission] there was an air of doom and gloom around the room. We weren’t really prepared for what was to unfold.”

The Mercury’s sailing writer Peter Campbell, media director for the CYCA at the time, likewise recalls the sense of crisis. He’d been in Sydney for the start of the race and flew to Hobart on Boxing Day.

“Within minutes of landing at Hobart airport I was told that the cyclonic low we had flown over was creating havoc in the Tasman Sea, with mayday calls from several yachts,” he says. “The Race Committee’s operations team at the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania at Sandy Bay was barely keeping up with reports from the Radio Relay Vessel of yachts retiring or seeking help as the storm worsened. The club’s race information staff could not cope with calls from anxious families and at the media centre we were coping with calls from around the world for news of what had become a disaster at sea. Race sponsor, Telstra, swung into action with technicians installing extra phone lines at both the club and the media centre. In both cases, local volunteers quickly came aboard to assist the club and media information teams.”

Badenach says he will never forget the moment he saw the small yacht Midnight Rambler, owned by Bob Thomas and Ed Psaltis, safely in Hobart.

“My most vivid memory of the whole race is going down to Constitution Dock and seeing Midnight Rambler tied up in the corner and I thought, how amazing. It had just sailed through the storm. A small yacht like that had beaten the elements and won the handicap honours,” he says. “It was a very sad time. But we just go on sailing and, as they say, get back on the horse. That was the comment [then] premier Jim Bacon made after the race and I think most of the [sailors] adopted that attitude. They thought Phillip Skeggs wouldn’t want us moping around. He would want us to get out sailing.”

A coroner’s inquest into the deaths of the six sailors — two from Business Post Naiad, three from the Winston Churchill and one from Sword of Orion — led to sweeping changes at the race administration level and an improvement in ocean racing safety standards around the world.

The Coroner was critical of the race management — the Sydney-based Cruising Yacht Club of Australia — and the Bureau of Meteorology. Race director Peter Thompson resigned, and the bureau was criticised for making insufficient effort to inform race officials about the upgraded forecast of a severe storm developing south of Eden, in NSW.

Walker, who was called as a witness at the inquest, says it was a stressful time. “The Premier Jim Bacon was very good to us. He gave the whole crew access to counselling. The inquest took a lot of time and emotional energy. At the end the Coroner thanked us. All of the other crews had legal representation, but we didn’t. We had to relate what had happened to us and we did that openly and honestly,” he says.

“The whole process took two years. It affected our [sail-making] business quite a bit. Gross turnover dropped 20 per cent. Customers don’t know how to deal with you after a traumatic event. But our loyal customers stayed with us. My friends were very good to me and very supportive.

“The Coroner’s report wasn’t all positive for everyone involved. Some of the administrators were hauled over the coals. That’s the way it was and changes were made.”

Badenach was also called as a witness at the inquiry. “They had a crisis centre in Sydney to deal with it at their end,” he says. “We battled on down here.”

Badenach says the Hobart race centre, run from the boardroom of the Cruising Yacht Club at Sandy Bay, is far more hi-tech and better equipped as a result of 1998 race.

A Safety at Sea Survival Course — now the global standard — was introduced as a direct result of the race, and all crews must now carry a barometer, personal safety gear (including an EPIRB and strobe), and have an EPIRB and waterproof handheld VHF radio in each liferaft, among other changes.

“The crews must now report in at Green Cape [south coast of NSW] to say their engine is working, their radio is working and all of their crew are in good condition,” he says. “That’s the last point before you enter Bass Strait. Quite a few boats have pulled out at that point since that rule came in. The Cruising Yacht Club got right on the front foot with it.

“Now at least four members of each crew must attend a briefing prior to the race. There’s a briefing on the weather, and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority gives a briefing on helicopter rescue. Everyone is really there to hear the weather guru because they want to know what the weather is going to be like on the way to Hobart.

“AMSA now has more modern aircraft and their procedures are different … I have been race co-ordinator for 22 years, and involved with the race for five years prior to that, and every year we improve the procedures. We are always refining it so we have tabs on where all the yachts are.”

Walker says safety and procedure improvements are reassuring. “Once you experience that sort of thing you learn from it,” he says. “The boats are better prepared and the weather forecasting is more accurate and more readily available via the internet, which you have access to on the boats now … There are much tougher administration procedures and that gives us comfort.”

For many sailors, the Sydney to Hobart is the Everest of ocean racing. Like the sea, it draws them in. Bennett returns each year to document the majesty and drama of the sea, landscape and weather, and the sailors who dare to go there. His dramatic 1998 photograph of the Midnight Rambler sailing with only a storm jib was published around the world.

“I love it, absolutely. The highlight of my year is planning and photographing the next Sydney to Hobart and making really beautiful fine art photographic prints because until you make a print, you haven’t made a pictorial history,” he says.

“There is a sense of adventure about the race. I am able to use my creative skills, which is very satisfying to me and to be working among the elements is a great part of it, too. It’s always a challenge to work out just where to go and when, to get the right angles and capture the peak of the action.”

Badenach is likewise drawn back year after year. “The race – it’s incredible. It just grows with you. I have never sailed in it, but I have sailed all my life,” he says. “Some of the race sailors have become household names in the yachting community and their names are familiar to all Tasmanians. When we finish the race, the boats motor along in front of the Taste and they get cheers. It’s a great time in Hobart.”

For Walker and others, sailing has been an essential part of the healing process. “I still love the sport and being part of a crew and a team. That’s part of the pleasure of ocean racing, being with a team and being with your mates and getting the best performance out of the boat,” he says. “Most of the crew [of Business Post Naiad] are still sailing. Over time crews change and relationships change within a group. I’ve sailed with most of them again, but not as a complete crew.

“A lot of people were in two minds whether to take us to sea again and didn’t want to deal with it [our trauma]. The opportunities [to sail] weren’t there to start with. A number of us had our own boats, so we just got back into the sport and sailed on our own boats.”

He says the completion of the Coronial Inquest in 2000 gave him “some closure”, and he was able to refocus on his business and his passion for sailing. As a 10-year-old he sailed in dinghies and had built three by the time he was 20. He competed in the Australian 470 squad in the 1980s and did three Olympic campaigns though he just missed out on selection. At 22, he opened his sail business, which he still runs with his wife.

“The first Sydney to Hobart I competed in was probably in about 1978. It was something I always aspired to do. Sailing has always been a passion and a love and I have managed to make it my professional life as well.”

While he says ocean racing in northern Tasmania suffered after the 1998 race, he continues to race as much as possible.

“It never recovered,” he says. “The safety requirements are more onerous now, and that means it’s more expensive. People are more aware of what could happen. Not many Tasmanian boats do it now because it’s so expensive to do. These days probably 30 per cent of the crews are professionals, compared to only about five per cent [in 1998],” Walker says.

“I still love sailing in a cruising and racing way. I have been sailing the Launceston to Hobart race each year and the Maria Island and Bruny Island races … I’m not in a hurry to do another Sydney to Hobart. I’m 65 and the opportunity probably won’t present itself again. But I will watch it with interest.”

Among those returning to the race this year is Ed Psaltis, who will be racing in a different yacht, again named Midnight Rambler. It will be his 37th Sydney to Hobart.

Says Campbell: “Many Australians who competed in the 628 nautical mile ocean classic 20 years ago will be on the starting line for the 74th Sydney Hobart on Boxing Day, 26 December 2018, and about the same time next day, out in the Tasman Sea, I am sure they will scan the sea and skies and remember those fine sailors who lost their lives 20 years ago, adding “May your bunk be always warm and dry.”