To write this feature about Hamilton Island Race Week for Sailing World magazine, I traveled to Australia's Whitsunday Islands. Research included embedding myself with the crew of the record-setting, 100-foot raceboat Wild Oats and rubbing shoulders with actress Naomi Watts and INXS guitarist Kirk Pengilly.
All Inclusive
Hamilton Island Race Week attracts the A-listers of Australia’s sailing and social circles. But down on the docks, you’ll find budget racers cracking beers and sleeping on their charter boats.
by Michael Lovett
Publication: Sailing World, January 2012
Shortly after arriving at Australia’s Hamilton Island Race Week, I find myself in a front-row seat at the Henri Lloyd fashion show. I’ve never been to the Southern Hemisphere, or a regatta with a catwalk. Under the bright lights flooding the outdoor stage, I become hyper-conscious of my flip-flops. But the smartly dressed man sitting next to me looks like he knows the drill. While waiting for the models to make their way down the runway—they’ll soon sashay past in oddly alluring combinations of swimwear and foul-weather gear—I strike up a conversation with my neighbor. His name is Kirk, and he’s just been racing for the first time, aboard the 100-footer Investec Loyal. I ask what he does for work.
“I play guitar,” he says.
“Cool,” I say. “Do you have a band?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice. What do call yourselves?”
“INXS.”
Being an original member of a band that’s sold 30 million albums, I soon learn, doesn’t make you a big deal on Hamilton Island. The centerpiece of the Whitsunday Islands—which dot the Coral Sea between the continent’s northeast coast and the Great Barrier Reef—“Hammo” is Australia’s premiere island resort, and its annual race week has become THE event of the winter season for keelboat sailors and beautiful people alike. At the 2011 edition, Kirk Pengilly of INXS blends easily into a crowd that includes Academy Award-nominee Naomi Watts, Australian celebrities, French millionaires, and America’s Cup heroes James Spithill and Iain Murray. The regatta and its myriad shoreside attractions provide ripe fodder for the national press; in 2011, Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph dedicates an entire page to the rumored philandering of television producer Michael Pell on the island.
But what’s most impressive about Race Week isn’t the exclusivity, it’s the inclusivity. Alongside the super maxis and four-course menus, the recordsetting multihulls and five-star accommodations, you find momand-pop crews sleeping aboard family cruisers and beer-guzzling teams that wouldn’t be caught dead at a fashion show.
“We want to have a little something for everyone,” says Sandy Oatley, an architect of the regatta’s recent renovation. “We want to attract the super maxis, sure, but we also want to be accessible for the people who want to charter a boat for the week, the family teams, people who are racing on a budget.”
John Clinton is the type of racer Oatley has in mind. With his long, grey beard, Clinton could stand in as a member of the rock band ZZ Top. Which isn’t too far off from reality. The 63-year-old is the drummer and vocalist for the Wolverines, a popular Australia country-music group. For this week, though, he’s all about the sailing. With his wife, Kim, as navigator, Clinton has been making the 1,000-mile trek from Sydney Harbor to Hamilton Island for more than a decade. They treat the voyage as a six-week winter break, scheduling stopovers at marinas near airports so John can fly off to gigs on the weekends. “The juggle between earning money in the entertainment industry and sailing up the coast is a bit of a headache,” he says, “but we work it out.”
The Clintons’ Beneteau Oceanis 50 Holy Cow, with its black-splotched headsail, has become a staple of Race Week’s Cruising 2 division. “We’re fortunate to be one of the few cruising boats with a crew waiting list,” he says when I join the gang for a midweek round-the-islands race. “We don’t consider ourselves experienced racers, but we’re always trying to improve our speed. It does us good as far as the cruising goes, because when you’re doing 1,000 miles up the coast, you can save days if you trim your sails right.”
Given the festive headsail and our mainsail trimmer’s choice of eyewear—green, Kanye West-style shutter shades—I assume we’ll bring up the rear of our 39-boat division. But I’m quickly corrected as the crew executes a flawless jibe, nails the downwind start, and leads toward the first waypoint.
Like most Race Week participants, the Clintons come for the full experience—the thrill of racing in a competitive fleet amidst stunning scenery, the joy of forging new friendships and rekindling old ones, and the richness of sampling an array of cultural, social, and gastronomic offerings. John combs out his beard for the Moët and Chandon luncheon; for the crew costume contest, Kim dresses her team as jungle animals bound for Noah’s Ark. “We’re here to have fun,” she says. “We race as hard as we can, but it’s more about getting the crew together and exploring these beautiful islands.”
Hamilton Island was a rocky, pine-studded sheep pasture when realestate developer Keith Williams began turning it into a destination resort in the early 1970s. He added an airport, built high-rise hotels, and dug a marina. In the fervor surrounding Australia II’s victory in the 1983 America’s Cup, Williams decided to host a regatta. The inaugural event took place in April 1984 and attracted 93 entries. Persistent rains prompted sailors to dub the regatta Hamilton Island Rain Week in the Wetsundays. Of course, Aussies enjoy themselves no matter the weather, and the event became an annual celebration, with teams flocking from Queensland ports like Brisbane and Cairns to race and revel in the enchanting tropical venue. In the early going, it assumed the shape of a typical destination regatta, with amateur crews sleeping aboard racer/cruisers and socializing in the beer tent.
Williams went bankrupt in 1992, and the resort went into receivership. With the regatta facing an uncertain future, organizers made the prudent decision to move the event to late August, the heart of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, a time when sailors in the southern part of the country are eager to bask in the equatorial warmth of a place like Hamilton Island. Rescheduling also positioned the regatta as a logical encore for racers competing in nearby Airlie Beach Race Week. But Hamilton Island Race Week was still just a regatta.
The prospect of renovating HIRW to his own tastes was a key factor in Robert Oatley’s decision to purchase the island in 2003. “My vision was to recreate the experience I’ve come to know in Porto Cervo,” says the businessman and yachting enthusiast, who spends his summers at Yacht Club Costa Smeralda on the Italian island of Sardinia. “I wanted to make it uniquely Australian, too. But first we had to dust off the property.”
Oatley’s “dust off” entailed $300 million worth of upgrades to the island’s infrastructure. He built several resorts within the resort, including the Beach Club—a “mid-range” hotel where rooms go for about $700 per night— and the exceedingly lavish qualia spa and resort. At the brand-new Hamilton Island Golf Club, on Dent Island, racers can spend the lay day knocking off a quick 18—golfing is one of more than 60 a la carte activities resort guests have at their disposal, others include ATV excursions, helicopter rides, and snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef.
Of all the improvements, the Hamilton Island YC is the most elegant. Architect Walter Barda designed it in a swooping, nautical style that marks another Australian masterpiece, the Sydney Opera House. On race days, spectators gather on the club’s cantilevered deck to watch the fleet line up for the starts on Dent Passage.
The remaking of Hamilton Island has been a family affair. Sandy Oatley, Robert’s son, runs the family businesses on and off the island, and Sandy’s daughter, Nicky Tindill, manages events for the resort. Together, they’ve made every effort to ensure that Race Week reflects the entirety of their vision. “We want to create an experience that’s more than just racing,” says Sandy Oatley. “We want the shoreside activities are just as stimulating as what’s happening on the water.”
Indeed, the social side of 2011 Hamilton Island Race Week is unlike any regatta anywhere. Each day’s schedule brims with offerings for the senses—fashion shows, degustations, pool parties, wine tastings, gallery openings. Audi brings more than 50 cars to the island to serve as shuttles for the week, and competitors sign up to race the title sponsor’s R8 sportscar around the airport runway. On the lay day, partway through the Moët and Chandon luncheon, guests migrate to the deck at qualia to watch a stunt plane perform aerial maneuvers.
On top of all they’ve done to accessorize the regatta, the Oatleys have expanded the racing side of things, too. The 2011 schedule spans a full eight days, Saturday to Saturday, with a mix of windward-leeward and aroundthe-islands races. The 195 entries fill eight divisions, ranging from Laser SB3s to chartered Jeanneaus to the blazing-fast trimaran Vodaphone (ex Géant). The cruising divisions are the most popular, and the race committee likes to send the fleet on meandering courses that afford up-close views of the largely uninhabited islands. Using two separate starting areas, the committee keeps divisions on the move and congestion to a minimum. A team of photographers, videographers, publicists, and emcees documents the action for the regatta’s extensive on-site media program, which includes a morning radio show and post-race video presentations.
The caliber of the competition is the draw for die-hard racers like Ross Muir, who could care less about the social calendar. “Most of the on-shore activities are for the ladies,” says Muir. “We come for the sailing.”
Muir hails from Tasmania, but he runs a chandlery in Brisbane. For the past ten years, he and his brother John have chartered a boat and invited their Tassie friends. “You could say we need a bit more practice, but we’ve all known each other for 50 years. Between us, we’ve sailed a few races,” he says. “We’re all geriatrics—the average age onboard is 66. We’re all married, but we don’t bring our wives because we don’t want them to spoil our fun!” Running on equal parts machismo and Cascade lager—Tasmania’s finest—the Muir clan has established itself as the team to beat in the Cruising 1 division. They bring a truckload of spare parts and upgrade their chartered Jeanneau 49 with much of their own gear, including a folding propellor, sails, spinnaker pole, and boom. Their resourcefulness paid off in 2011 when they broke the boom in high winds early in the week. “We fixed it using some welding equipment over at the airport, and we didn’t miss a race,” says Muir. “It’s a lot easier to charter a boat, bring our gear over on the ute [i.e. “truck”], and rerig it when we get here. Plus, when the racing’s done, you just get off the boat and fly home.”
After taking first-place in Cruising 1, the team will return home with even more hardware. “[Race Week] is good because it brings us all together, just the way it used to be,” says Muir. “It’s just like home, except it’s snowing and sleeting in Hobart right now.”
Late in the week, I hop aboard Robert Oatley’s Reichel/Pugh 100 Wild Oats XI—which holds the course record for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race and took line honors for the fifth time last January—for one more race through the islands. We’re well on our way to line honors in an IRC A division that also stars Anthony Bell’s Investec Loyal, Stephen Ainsworth’s Reichel/Pugh 63 Loki, and Marcus Blackmore’s TP52 Hooligan when skipper Mark Richards hands off the wheel and takes a place beside me on the rail. “Hammo is the beginning of our training for the SydneyHobart,” he explains. “We use the regatta to work on our crew work, practice sail changes, and test the sail inventory. We figure out what needs to be tweaked.”
Richards words trail off. I follow his gaze to find a pair of humpbacks breaching within half a boatlength of our leeward rail. They surface, spout, then dip their lumpy heads, fanning their tails in unison. I want to reach for my camera, but I’m transfixed. Here I am, zipping along at 14 knots in a 12-knot breeze, riding the rail of a state-of-the-art raceboat, watching two of the world’s largest animals put on a show in impossibly turquoise water, before a backdrop of blue sky and emerald islands. I’m in awe. Judging by their gaping jaws, so are my crewmates, for whom Hammo is an annual trip. Hamilton Island Race Week, it seems, always finds a way to put sailors in a happy place
How to Go
One thing missing from Hamilton Island Race Week is a U.S. presence on the entry list, but organizers are trying to change that. In 2008, they introduced the South Pacific Cup, a grand-prix competition between two-boat national teams; they’re hoping to welcome U.S. challengers for 2012. Interested? E-mail Rob Mundle (rob. mundle@bigpond.com).
Charter a Boat
For more budget-conscious teams from overseas, chartering is an excellent option. Sunsail operates a base on the island with a fleet of 11 catamarans and 25 monohulls, and Race Week packages include access to the daily dockside sausage sizzle. www.sunsail.com
Travel
U.S.-based flights on Quantas (www. qantas.com.au) connect through Los Angeles, and then it’s 14 hours in the air to Brisbane or Sydney, where you catch a quick flight to Hamilton Island’s Great Barrier Reef Airport. You won’t be renting a car, as the only vehicles on the island are golf carts and chauffeured Audis. Everything’s within walking distance.
Where to Stay
Some racers sleep aboard, but many teams rent one of the Palm Bungalows, starting at $320/night. More upscale options include the Beach Club Resort or the qualia resort and spa. www.hamiltonisland.com.au