A champion eSailor who enjoys getting wet on real boats

Brin Wilson (left) takes the microphone at the Sydney Hobart prizegiving. With him from left are: Brin Wilson, Richard Wilson, Peter Shaw, Ian Telford, Murray Aldridge, Don Pollock. Ray Haslar is missing from the image..

Photos courtesy of Richard Wilson

One was when rigger Terry Gillespie was injured falling off the mast. The other was when Pathfinder incurred some damage running aground in Sydney Harbour. “There are only three rocks in the whole harbour and we had to hit one of them,” he grumbled.

Later, a very slurred John Lidgard managed to explain that all three yachts blew out spinnakers during the final night. “Our pre-race plan was to win,” he declared stoutly.

In his autobiography, It’s in our Blood, Lidgard describes the wild spinnaker run down the Tasmanian coast – “with the apparent wind registering 40 knots at times and the boat and rig vibrating wildly with the pressure”. Describing the post-match celebrations as “unrestrained”, Lidgard adds: “I am ashamed to admit to only a vague memory of it.”

Fifty years on, however, memories are only of the pride in a team which helped lay the foundations of New Zealand’s subsequent and ongoing success in international yacht racing.

A recent tradition of the Sydney-Hobart is to invite the winning skipper of 50 years earlier to fire the starting cannon, which, watched by thousands of spectators on headlands and boats, sets the fleet on its way.

This year, that honour was to have gone to Richard Wilson, son of Brin Wilson and bowman in the 1971 series. Sadly, because of Covid restrictions, Wilson had to decline the honour. “It is a great shame I could not take up the invitation,” he said. “It is something that only comes up once in a lifetime, so I was very disappointed to have to decline.”

Wilson said he would follow the start of the 2021 race on TV as he has done over the years. “Earlier this year, there was a nice function at the Royal Akarana Yacht Club, where all the crews got together for the first time since 1971. I spoke on behalf of my late father and it was fantastic for all the crew members to catch up again after all that time.

“I do still reflect on the 1971 regatta. It was an amazing result and I think it demonstrated that the crews were more skilled than anybody probably realised. It was a culmination of the amount of offshore sailing we did at that time.

“From the time I was 17, I started racing offshore and I was never home at weekends. We thought nothing of doing 150-200 mile races over a weekend, round the back of Great Barrier and Channel islands.

“By the time we crossed the Tasman in 1971 for that Southern Cross Cup series, I was still only 20 years old and had already done two previous double Tasman crossings with John Lidgard, who is my uncle.”

During the series in Sydney, the Kiwis were rivals on the water and team mates ashore. “We all sailed hard, but we were all close friends. We swapped ideas all the time. I wasn’t party to all the discussions. It was often just between the skippers and navigators, but all the information was shared between the boats and after every race we would get together for a debrief.

“The Hobart was one of those rare races where everything fell into place. We all followed the same route, but I guess we were all about the same size. So that was not really a plan, it just worked out that way.

“On that last night, the northwesterly was pretty fresh. We carried the kite most of the time, except during the squalls when there was a lot of hail and rain and big gusts. We had the spinnaker up and down all night. The British and Australian yachts did not carry their spinnakers as long as we did. That was the big difference.

“In the morning, the wind started coming ahead. At the Iron Pot, early in the morning, we knew that things were looking pretty hopeful for us. We had the (bigger) British Admiral’s Cup boat, Cervantes, alongside us and we knew Runaway and Wai-Aniwa were pushing hard just behind us.”

As Wai-Aniwa crossed the line in 3rd place on handicap, sealing the incredible result, an Australian TV commentator summed up the result. “The 1971 Sydney-Hobart was one of the most closely-contested in the history of the event. The New Zealanders well deserve their victory,” he said. As, indeed, they surely did. By Ivor Wilkins

1971 NEW ZEALAND CREWLISTS

Pathfinder: Brin Wilson, Richard Wilson, Murray Aldridge, Don Pollock, Peter Shaw, Ray Haslar, Terry Gillespie, Ian Telford. Runaway: John Lidgard, Heather Lidgard, Kevin Lidgard, Warren Smitth, Mike McCormick, Doug Galbraith, Paul Schultz. Wai-Aniwa: Chris Bouzaid, Gill Littler, Bevan Woolley, Joe Macky, Bob Farrell, Ray Walker, John Woolley.