This boat is older than the Titanic. Its skipper thinks it can win Sydney to Hobart

3 months ago 6

There is a Wikipedia page for everything. Even one dedicated to really old boats.

The Oldest Surviving Ships list starts in 660 AD and ends with a paddle steamer permanently moored in the Ohio River. But missing from this assortment of antique vessels – and yet eligible for inclusion – is the Maritimo Katwinchar, a 33-foot yacht made in 1904.

Michael Spies, skipper of Maritimo Katwinchar, aboard the 121-year-old yacht.

Built eight years before the Titanic was finished, the Katwinchar has been left off the Wikipedia page but included on another significant list. Of the 142 boats sailing in this year’s Sydney to Hobart, Katwinchar is the oldest – and the oldest to have ever entered the race.

This year’s race marks 74 years since Katwinchar first entered the Sydney to Hobart, in 1951. To put that into prespective, the harbour from which the fleet departed back then was not yet adorned by the Sydney Opera House.

Built in the Watney’s brewery in London and made from the same Canadian red cedar used in the brewery’s kegs, Katwinchar was named after the proprietor’s daughters, Katherine, Winifred and Charlotte.

Almost half a century later, three fishermen – Eddie Mossop, Bill Barlett and Dennis Tanner – sailed Katwinchar from the south of England across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific. The voyage took them 196 days.

Katwinchar in the 1951 Sydney to Hobart race.

“She turned up exactly where we’re sitting now, albeit with less facilities,” current skipper Michael Spies says at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in Rushcutters Bay. “I don’t know how good they were, because they didn’t catch a fish between them on the whole trip.”

It was at the CYCA that Katwinchar’s crew was convinced to enter the 1951 race, although that year it retired before finishing.

The boat was bought in 1960 by the father of Billy Barry Cotter, the founder of luxury yacht builder Maritimo. Cotter had fond memories of the small yacht he had grew up with, and as an adult found it for sale on Gumtree.

“Bill got wind of where it was, and it seemed very derelict,” Spies said. “14,000 man-hours later, this is the boat.”

On December 7, 1951 Eddie Mossop, Bill Barlett and Dennis Tanner scrape the hull of the Katwinchar after arriving in Sydney.

Although Katwinchar is the oldest boat in the fleet by some margin, and has been nicknamed the great-great-grandmother of the race, Spies believes it can be competitive – and in 2019, it was.

That year, Katwinchar won its division, the Grand Veterans class. This year, Spies – who has line and overall honours to his name, having won in 1999 and 2003 respectively – is after one of the big trophies. To do it, he needs volatile conditions which are advantageous to small boats.

“If the planets align, and it’s a small boat race, well, I’d like to think our name could come out of the hat,” he said. “Certainly in the back of our mind think we can beat most competitive and win the overall [race].”