#rshyr – Around Sydney and the clubhouse of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, he's Dr Darryl, the living breathing embodiment of modern Australia writes WM Nixon. In a country moving on very rapidly from rough blokedom to smooth hyper-affluence, this man is the new world. Even when still a bit wind-blown and battered on the Derwent quayside after a rugged Sydney-Hobart Race, he still looks as though he has been sent out by Central Casting to play the role of a thoughtful plastic surgeon, which just happens to have been the career choice of Dr Darryl Hodginson.
Having made a success of that, he chose to go offshore racing. And he did so to such good effect that in 2011 he was Rookie of the Year. Then in 2012 he was Australia's Offshore Racer of the Year. There's only one peak to climb after that, so for 2013 he went for it. He sold his consistent First 45, and bought Chris Bull's Cookson 50 Jazz with the express purpose of winning the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race within two years.
He bought the boat as a 65th birthday present for himself, telling his wife that it was nor or never for a Hobart win. Re-named Victoire, this beautifully-maintained example of what is indubitably one of the greatest all-round designs of contemporary offshore racing has come up trumps for him at the first shot, winning the famous Tattersall's Cup overall. On IRC, her corrected time of 3 days 18 hours 27 minutes and 43 seconds is a very convincing hour and five minutes ahead of the next best, Phil Simpendorfer's Elliott 44 Veloce.
Victoire is sailed by a crew of mates. "We don't fly in a lot of expensive people" says the Doctor. Key man after the owner-skipper is Sean Kirkjian, ace helm and tactician, and between the determined and visionary owner and the skilled all-round sailor, they trained their crew of weekend sailors into a formidable group who raced this demanding but rewarding boat to success.
Another success of the 2013 Rolex Sydney Harbour Race has surely been the IRC. Beforehand, it seemed a little odd that the vintage Wild Oats XI rated quite a bit higher on IRC than the other top hundred footer, Anthony Bell's Perpetual LOYAL. But although Perpetual showed her dazzling potential with speed bursts of 35 knots once the gale arrived, overall in what were genuinely average summer conditions, the overall performance abilities of Wild Oats were reflected by her IRC number, whereas Perpetual doesn't really sail up to her rating until winds get above 12 to 14 knots.
In any Hobart Race, just as in the Fastnet, boats of a particular size, or rather comparable boats of a similar rating, will tend to be favoured by the actual pattern of conditions experienced. This is demonstrated very forcefully in the Hobart results. Of the first six boats overall, five fall within the 1.250 to 1.381 rating band. The exception is Bruce Taylor's Reichel Pugh-designed Caprice 40 Chutzpah, which took fifth overall on a rating of 1.197, which puts her broadly in the same area, in which Victoire is at the top end with an attractively competitive rating of 1.350.
As for the Irish competitors, with Sean McCarter and Conor O'Byrne's runaway win with Derry-Londonderry-Doire in the Clipper fleet (it was four hours before the next boat finally finished), we've more than enough to b celebrating, but the Royal Irish crew led by Barry Hurley in the First 40 Breakthrough had a good showing to place 6th in Division 3 and 27th overall, putting them comfortably into the top third of the fleet.
The two very new girls on the block, Karl Kwok's 80ft Beau Geste and Matt Allen's 60ft Ichi Ban, will have some thinking to do. The fascination here is that each has been designed by former partners in the now defunct Botin Carkeek design team, with Marcelino Botin creating Beau Geste, while Shaun Carkeek mastered Ichi Ban.
This boat had to follow the all-conquering 63ft Loki, former mount of top helmsman Gordon Maguire. To this casual observer, Ichi Ban looks rather voluminous by comparison with the lean and swift Loki, and positively bulbous by comparison with Wild Oat XI, which carries all the excess flesh of a tinker's greyhound. Could it be that the new Ichi Ban has too much freeboard, too much hull buoyancy? You could understand why Gordon Maguire might be inclined that way, as he was at the helm of the Lawrie Smith-captained maxi Rothmans when she took a spectacular and much-publicised nosedive during a Sydney-Hobart, submarining for quite a long way. And then too, he was at the helm of Lough Derg YC's Jocelyn Waller's BH 41 Silk in Cowes Week when she deep-sixed in the Solent running before a squall above gale force. Nevertheless, you could be forgiven for wondering if all that buoyant hull up forward night be veering on too much of a good thing on Ichi Ban.
