Australian boats sign up for Transpac race in Geelong

A PAIR of new Australian-owned Transpac 52s will make for a thrilling battle in the Rating Series at next year’s Festival of Sails in Geelong.

Numbers in the TP52 class, well known for their Mediterranean series and overall results in passage races such as the Sydney-Hobart, have been beefed up in Australia, with Melbourne-based Chris Dare and Sydney-based Gordon Ketelbey buying in.

Dare has spent the last few years working his way through smaller boat classes and driving his son and daughter around the country to attend youth regattas.

The former owner of the Corby 49 Flirt has returned to big boat sailing with his two teenagers and a crew mostly aged between 17 and 27 on a TP52 called Ambition, which made its debut on Port Phillip earlier this month.

Ketelbey’s reason for purchasing the TP52 his team is now scrambling to have ready for this year’s Hobart race, is unusual – he blacked out in February while driving his car near his Middle Harbour home and plunged 27 metres off a cliff towards the ocean, suffering only facial injuries while his car was left a crumpled wreck.

“It was a fairly nasty incident and an interesting point to reflect on my mortality,” he said.

“There’s a point in your life when you think ‘you’re 65 with some pennies in the bank and one of these days you’ll be 70 and not wanting to be bouncing around on a TP52’.”

Ambition is configured for distance races rather than around the buoys match-ups against the newer generation TPs such as Marcus Blackmore’s Hamilton Island Race Week winner Hooligan and Matt Allen’s Ichi Ban, an all-rounder with a Sydney-Hobart overall victory in 2017 and follow-up first in division at this year’s Australian Yachting Championships.

Ichi Ban and Ambition are confirmed starters for the 2019 Festival of Sails 2019, while Hooligan, Sam Haynes’ Celestial and Geoff Boettcher’s Secret Men’s Business are more than likely, bringing together at least five TP52s for some close-quarter racing within the Rating Series division, starting with the traditional Melbourne to Geelong Passage Race mass start off Williamstown on January 26.