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11:12 PM Tue 23 Dec 2008 GMT
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Lovers of the classic S&S racing yachts of the 1970's and 80's, with their graceful sheer, neat reverse counter transom and voluptuous tumblehome should keep an eye out on Boxing Day for two Dutch entries in the Rolex Sydney Hobart 2008.
Atse Blei has bought out his beautifully restored 36 year old S&S 41 Pinta-M, and Harry Heijst will be right there on the start line beside him in his own 1972 S&S 41, Winsome, which he had completely refitted in 2006.
"Atse's 41 is a bit shorter than my boat and heavier," Harry jokes, "so he should be slower."
In fact the two Dutch yachtsmen have raced against each other many times, notably in several Rolex Fastnet races. In 2005 Pinta-M won outright bragging rights in the long rivalry when she placed fifth overall in the British classic, an outstanding result for an old boat up against the cream of European ocean racing.
The two boats are out here because 15 years ago Blei worked for a time in Perth.
"I sailed on a boat called Red Jacket, and we were going to do the Hobart,"
Atse explains, "but then it was all postponed a year. By that time I was back in Holland and couldn't come out for the race. Red Jacket won her class. It is the worse thing that can happen to you and since then I was always determined to do the race at least once. We have done a few Fastnets so I thought why not take Pinta-M to Sydney."
The plan cascaded into not one but two Dutch S&S 41's when Atse asked his friend Harry Heijst, who runs a shipping company, about how he could best transport Pinta-M to Australia.
"I didn't see the point," Heijst says. "The Fastnet and the Hobart are both the same length so why go all the way to the other side of the world. But my crew kept giving me such a hard time that I said I think I'm going to have to go as well."
Both concede that they have been surprised by just how much it has cost to bring a boat this far and prepare her for a Rolex Sydney Hobart. Atse thinks he will have spent about 80,000 euros ($160,000) all up on the Pinta-M campaign. They have also found that the Australian race is much more carefully regulated than the Fastnet.
"It is much tougher get the boat fitted out with all the safety and communications equipment than the Fastnet," Heijst says. Blei says that the safety checks are a lot harder: "we have been preparing Pinta-M for twelve months. We thought the boat was already set up for the Rolex Fastnet and we were quite done, but it's not exactly the same."
Both boats are typical 1970's IOR racers, built to claw their way to windward in the toughest of conditions, but no match for the modern reaching and downwind speed machines spawned by the IRC rules.
So both Blei and Heijst are disappointed that the long range forecast for this year's Rolex Sydney Hobart is for lots of running and reaching conditions.
"We should have come in 2006," Heijst says. That was when another S&S classic, Love and War won in a race that was a tough, windward bash from Sydney Heads to the Derwent River.
"Love and War showed that you can still win with an old boat. But maybe not this year. That's ocean racing."
"If we aren't going to get a tough Hobart this year maybe I will leave Pinta-M in Sydney and come back again next year" says Blei.
Heijst just shakes his head. "Winsome is going back for the next Fastnet," he says.
The two men flew out with most of their crew only a few days ago, leaving behind five degrees in Amsterdam. They look at each other's sunburned faces, then at their lobster red legs protruding from shorts and a T-shirt. Is this really Christmas they wonder.
by Jim Gale/Rolex Sydney Hobart
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