SYDNEY TO HOBART SHAKEDOWN CRUISE

 

• Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific, Thor Heyerdahl's, Kon-Tiki expedition and the well reported stories of yachtsman, Vic Meyer who sailed the Pacific with his all-female crews, were all stories that were part of an adventure-genre which captured the hearts and minds of young men who lived around Sydney Harbour in the nineteen-sixties and seventies. This is a story about one of those young men, who having never sailed before, bought a battered 60ft pedigree Ketch, a proven passage maker, restored her and set off on the adventure of his life with a bunch of mates
• Valhalla a classic ketch, a racing splinter of a yacht was launched in 1952. She was built for racing for the millionaire cornflower-baron, Nigel Love, who named her South Winds and raced her successfully on the NSW coast, winning many races and honours. She was one of the last of her kind, built in Sydney from Tasmanian Huon-pine, now a protected species. Sixty-one feet in length, laid up on spotted gum frames, twelve ton of lead in the keel, a teak-deck, a beach-timber doghouse and the hull beautifully splined above the waterline.
• In1972 she returned from an eight-year world cruise and was sold in a shabby condition. Derk Vanderbent, her third owner spent a year restoring and refitting her and set her up for cruising and entered her into the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. She was still a very fast boat but lightweight fiberglass yachts were well established for racing by then so she would be entered under the handicap age allowance rule to compete against such famous yachts as race winner Ceil-3 and Prospect of Whitby, Rampage, Apollo plus a small group of the latest light weight skiff designs.
• Nineteen-seventy-three was also the year that Helsal won line honours in the Hobart race and broke the race record in the process. The most memorable, being that she was the only ferro-cement yacht ever to win a major ocean race. The 73-foot concrete yacht was controversial and untested and was instantly nicknamed ‘the floating footpath’. The owner, Dr. Tony Fisher who, like Derk, was experiencing his first major ocean race, but with a paid gun-crew, had to fight to get Helsal accepted because of her unconventional construction. This soured his relationship with some of the race committee. He refused to attend the celebrations or drink with committee members in Hobart. Instead, the story often told, is that he bought a bright red concrete mixer. Placed it on the fore deck of Helsal and filled it with 2/1 rum and coke, and invited anyone who wanted to drink with him onto his boat.
• Although there is some overlap, there are two very distinct yachty types. Those that like to race boats and break gear, and those that like to lay back and go cruising. Derk had cruising in mind and Valhalla was entered specifically for a shakedown voyage. He had chosen the race as the first leg of his Pacific adventure, which it certainly became. The young inexperienced owner and his crew, all in their twenties and with the tutelage of two seasoned sailors and a young merchant-navy navigator, had chosen the Southern Cross Cup Series, and specifically the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race as a means of learning how to sail and navigate.
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• With no idea of tactical racing and no tactician onboard, Valhalla struck out to sea on Boxing Day 1973 hoping for the predicted southerly change, which would have suited her best. Most of the fleet cruised down the east coast, closer to shore under spinnaker, in light northerlies and catching light offshore breezes, while Valhalla well out to sea in the southern current, searched for the heavy weather. By the time she entered Bass Straight with her inexperienced cruising crew, and with most of the fleet safely around Tasman Island she finally encountered the weather and pounded her way into heavy seas in Bass Straight, for what she had been built. A weakness forward which had forced her out of the Montague Island race a week earlier, whilst in second place, once again hampered her progress. The tired copper fastenings around the bow-stem had stretched and were pumping in water. She limped into Hobart at the tail end of the race, just in time for the New Year celebrations. The yacht was hauled out for repairs in Triabunna and with crew training over the young all male crew of six were ready to set off in the wake and search of Solo, on the adventure of their lives.