Leading but time to reflect

• NEWS
• 27 Dec, 2007 12:58:00 PM

Leading but time to reflect

Spirit of Koomooloo, the yacht currently leading the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race on corrected time, this morning took time out to pay its respects to the sunken yacht that gave rise to its name.

Spirit of Koomooloo, the yacht currently leading the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race on corrected time, this morning took time out to pay its respects to the sunken yacht that gave rise to its name.

The original Koomooloo, which won the 1968 Sydney Hobart overall, sank off the NSW coast in last year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart.  It was a tragedy for Don Freebairn and his family from Brisbane.  Don and son Mike spent a decade restoring it for the 2005 race after it had passed through seven pairs of hands since winning the Hobart race 37 years earlier.  In 2005, the year Wild Oats XI set a new race record, Koomooloo won Division E handicap honours.

She returned to compete in last year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart, but sank off Narooma on the NSW coast on December 27 after falling off the back of a wave and cracking the hull.  Leading the fleet on handicap at the time, crew members had to abandon ship and were taken aboard the British yacht Adventure before being transferred to a police launch which brought them ashore.

In memory of one of the most revered traditional boats to have won the Hobart race – she had 20 coats of varnish on her Honduras mahogany hull - the Freebairns bought another classic timber boat in March.  Margaret Rintoul II, Syd Fischer’s original Ragamuffin, which was built in the same year, 1968, in the same boat yard and by the same builder, Cec Quilkey.

Today, at about 9.30am, as they passed 30 nautical miles west of the spot where Koomooloo sank, Mike Freebairn called the crew together to pay their respects, to toast her with tots of rum and milk, and to cast from the boat a wreath of Australian flora that was prepared by Mike’s sister Vanessa.  It was a moment they shared via phone with Don and Margaret Freebairn who are in Brisbane.

“It was something my mother wanted us to do,” Mike Freebairn said.

“It was nothing too sombre.”

Spirit of Koomooloo holds a two-hour edge on corrected time in the race but Freebairn says it is now crunch time for them.

“We’ve been beating into it for some time.  The sea is quite lumpy. It’s going to lighten tonight and forecast to swing round to the north overnight. It will be a defining moment in the race.

“It is going to be very difficult for us.  This is a heavy boat that has to go uphill (upwind) to perform at her best.  It’s already been a big effort by the crew.”