Winner takes all in Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

January 1, 2006 When Wild Oats XI crossed the finish line on December 27, it became just the sixth boat in the 61 year history of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race to take the line honours and handicap double. It also became only the second boat in history to win the magical treble (the first boat to do it was Rani under Captain John Illingworth in the inaugural race) by setting a new race record too, eclipsing Nokia's 1999 race record by more than an hour for the 628 nautical mile race. It is an enormous irony though, that the boat which was the last in contention to beat the US$10 million super maxi was the oldest boat in the race. The 41-footer Ray White Koomooloo won the race on IRC in 1968 with an elapsed time 4 days, 10 hours, 26 min and 52sec – in her time she was at the very forefront of boating technology with her lightweight four-skin, cold moulded wooden construction. This year she bettered that time by more than eleven hours to finish in 3 days, 22hours, 51min and 39sec but light winds in the final stages cost her any chance of repeating her IRC victory of 37 years ago. The mahogany-constructed Sparkman-Stephens-designed Koomooloo was lovingly restored over seven years and for the last twelve months has been heavily and successfully campaigned by Queenslander Don Freebairn. That's Wild Oats XI on the left and Koomooloo on the right.

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