The Winner That Wasn’t: WILD WAVE
Quick trivia question:
Name three yachts that arrived off Battery Point, at the end of the Sydney-Hobart, believing they were line honours winners, only to be denied by the protest committee?
I’m sure most of us could name WILD OATS XI 2017 race as one. Or, perhaps you might recall when ROTHMANS' line honours position, was not allowed to stand for breaking Rule 26 (advertising) by flying a spinnaker with an illegal logo emblazoned upon it. (This always seemed a little odd to me. F’christsakes the boat was called ROTHMANS!)
But how many would know the third and most elegant of the three?
The Hobart Mercury Wednesday 30th December 1953
Motoring past the south side of Scotland Island on Pittwater last winter, the graceful sheer of a white hulled boat stood out amongst the crowd. I steered closer and read the name on her transom only to realised this was Jock Muir’s famous, 1952 huon pine sloop, WILD WAVE.