2019 Sydney Hobart Classic Yacht Regatta - John Jeremy Photos

Margaret Rintoul and others in the (Inaugural) Sydney Hobart Classic Yacht Regatta...

What a great regatta this turned out to be for Margaret Rintoul with a first and third in Division being good enough for the division win.  So great to see all those classic yachts out there racing just as hard as when they were launched...

John took some great shots of the yachts reaching and running, some of us need to pay more attention to our genoa trim than others...

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Margaret Rintoul making for the division start, Windrose NIF behind to windward..

Margaret with Maris to windward as we head for the start. A perfectly timed run...  The Pin is visible just off the stern of the launch in the bottom right of the photo.

Margaret with Nerida ahead just to windward squeezing Maris to windward and astern.  Further down the course the reach tightened and Margaret revelled in the conditions as the water became soother and we sailed away from our rivals...

In these conditions and sailed moderately well, Margaret is almost unbeatable by her contemporaries.
Flat-water and a broad reach, even with only the #2 flying upfront we steadily slipped away...  Nerida now to windward and astern. 

The wind gods were kind to the old girl on the day and we proved unbeatable.

A winner, sailed moderately well though some improvement required, as is evident here...

The Crew:  Bruce Gould Helm, Steven Collins Genoa, John Brooks Main, John Sheridan Mizzen, John McClurcan Tactics, Donny Finch Foredeck, PK Mast Pit

 

Australian National Maritime Museum - Margaret Rintoul Entry

Australian National Maritime Museum

Margaret Rintoul in the Derwent River 1949 - Hobart Mercury Photo

☆☆☆☆☆
Margaret Rintoul-Vessel Number: HV000430
Build Date: 1948
Designer: Philip L Rhodes New York
Builder: Ted Haddock Sydney Australia
Previous Owner: Austin E Edwards-Sydney, Club Distribution Company Pty Ltd-Sydney, Bob Tardiff - Sydney
Current Owner: Bruce D Gould & Paul F Kerrigan – RSYS

Dimensions:
Vessel Dimensions: 13.49 m x 9.45 m x 3.43 m x 1.98 m (44.25 ft x 31 ft x 11.25 ft x 6.5 ft)

Classification: Vessels and fittings

Significance:
MARGARET RINTOUL is an ocean racing yacht built in Sydney for builder Austin E Edwards in 1948. The yawl rigged yacht won line honours in two successive Sydney to Hobart races in the early 1950s and set a record for the race with its second victory. Line honours, which was the first yacht to finish, has always captured the public's attention for the Sydney to Hobart race, and the challenge of setting a new record has since become a fascination and focus of media speculation each year in the lead up to the event. Designed by renowned US naval architect Philip L Rhodes, it is an early example of a post-war ocean racer built in Australia to the latest international concepts, at a time when many local ocean racing boats were dated to the 1930s. The custom-built, up-to-the-minute design of MARGARET RINTOUL in 1948 just three years after the event had started, illustrates how early the development of a serious and competitive approach to all aspects of ocean racing had begun, an approach that was dominating the event from the late 1950s. MARGARET RINTOUL also represents another stage in a growing trend away from local designers toward designs from the USA and Europe, that had its beginnings in the 1930s.
Description: MARGARET RINTOUL was built by Ted Haddock in Sydney for builder Austin Edwards, who had chosen a design from the Phillip Rhodes, an emerging American naval architect. Rhodes had been chief designer at Cox and Stevens from 1934 and took over the firm in 1947. He then gave the firm his own name and quickly became one of the leading yacht designers in the USA in the 1950s and 60s beside a retiring John Alden from Boston and the acknowledged dean of the profession, Olin Stephens. The builder Haddock is less well known. He had a yard at Margaret St in Greenwich for a short period and is also remembered as the builder of the light-weight ocean racing sisterships NOCTURNE (possibly the yacht built for J R Bull of the CYCA and line honours winner in 1952) and SERENADE in the late 1940s.

MARGARET RINTOUL sailed in the 1949 and 1950 Sydney to Hobart races and narrowly missed line honours by two minutes in 1949 when the yachts finished in the dark. Close finishes then become part of its story.

MARGARET RINTOUL's second race in the Sydney to Hobart was in 1950 and it was a gruelling event. The fleet sailed directly into a fierce southerly gale as they turned south at Sydney Heads, and spent almost 2/3rds of the race pushing to windward in heavy sea conditions. Edwards had the experienced Mervyn Davey as his skipper (Mervyn's record included winning the 1949 race as skipper of Trade Winds on corrected time.) and Norman Hudson, (Sydney Morning Herald Yachting Correspondent), who was the mate of the crew as well a crew used to tough conditions.
Conditions eased through the Bass Strait crossing and then it became a spinnaker run down the coast where rival yacht MISTRAL V, a similar and contemporary Olin Stephens design took the lead for a period, while the fleet bunched up overnight off the coast of Tasmania. The following morning a severe, squally southerly hit the fleet again and MARGARET RINTOUL headed out to sea while rivals MISTRAL V and NERIDA stayed close to shore. They came together again at the entrance to Storm Bay, and in the fickle conditions, MARGARET RINTOUL picked a change in the wind direction before the other yachts and took a freshening sea breeze down to the finish line to an exciting 18-minute victory over MISTRAL V, watched by spectators ashore and on boats following them to the finish...

In the following year, 1951 conditions were quite different, and the favourable nor-east winds allowed the leading yachts to run under spinnaker until well across Bass Strait when the wind went south-west, then south-east. It died away on the turn into Storm Bay, and once again there was a close finish with MARGARET RINTOUL catching an easterly shift to take line honours and new race record of 4 days, 2 hours and 29 minutes, half an hour ahead of LASS O'LUSS. The race record was to stand for another seven years. The winning crew were Austin Edwards (Owner), Ken Cornwell (Navigator), Frank Barlow (Skipper), Ron Wise, Ron Kelly, Peter Mecham, Len Miginof, Terry Flew.
 
Photo Hobart Mercury

© - Hobart Mercury Photo

MARGARET RINTOUL was a consistent performer in many races on the east coast over several years after the Hobart record event. Winning several east coast races including the Montague Is race in 1951 and setting a race record for this race.
A sister ship was built in Adelaide called TAHUNA for Henry Wickens.

 
By 2020 Margaret Rintoul has become a classic yacht seen cruising around Sydney Harbour and Pittwater, still with its original sail plan. The original spruce main mast has been replaced with an Oregon one designed by Alan Payne, The mizzen mast has similarly been replaced several times over the years and is also now constructed of Oregon.


Vessel Details
Ballast: external lead
Cabin or superstructure material and construction: timber planked
Current status: operational
Deck layout: cabin decked with cockpit
Deck material and construction: timber plywood, wood, fibreglass
Hull material and construction: carvel timber carvel-planked timber
Hull shape: displacement monohull, overhanging stem overhanging transom, round bottom.
Keel/centreboard/rudder type: full keel, keel hung rudder
Motor propulsion: auxiliary motor diesel inboard
Propeller: single
Related materials: awards/trophies drawings interviews news clippings photos references
Rig type: yawl
Sailcloth: synthetic
Spar material: timber
Hand propulsion/steering mechanism: wheel replaced original tiller steering by Bob Tardiff
Alternate Numbers

Sail Number: 353

Vessel Registration Number: MR353N

Finish of 1949 Sydney Hobart - Sydney Morning Herald

Sunday Herald (Sydney, NSW: 1949 - 1953), Sunday 1 January 1950, page 3

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Editor's Note: This Report of the 1949 Sydney To Hobart race appeared in the SMH on Jan 1, 1950, on page 3.

EXCITING STRUGGLE UP DERWENT

Waltzing Matilda First Over Line In Hobart Yacht Race

LEADS MARGARET RINTOUL ACROSS BY TWO MINUTES

Waltzing: Matilda, 46ft cutter, was first across j the finishing line last night in the annual Sydney Hobart yacht race.  In the most exciting finish in the history of the event, the cutter crossed the line at 9.33 p.m.-two minutes ahead of the 43ft yawl, Margaret Rintoul

Third to finish was another Sydney yacht, the 43ft "mystery" steel cutter Trade Winds, which came in at 9.40. It is thought that Trade Winds may win the handicap section of the race.

Thousands lined Hobart's Castary Esplanade to cheer as Waltzing Matilda drifted across the line in an almost dead calm.  It was a thrilling finish to a race packed with excitement and incident.

Trade Winds, which had contested the lead with Waltzing Matilda and Margaret Rintoul in an exciting battle of tactics in the Derwent, came in at 10.9 p.m.  The flag of the finishing box hung limp as the craft drifted slowly to the line in the moonlight.   The only indication spectators had of the craft's whereabouts were the navigating lights glimmering in the distance. No one knew the position of the yachts until the line had been crossed.

OTHERS TO-DAY

Women in evening dress on their way to New Year parties were among the excited crowd. Gypsy Queen and Independence, in fourth and fifth positions, are not likely to finish until today.  Under a barrage of movie cameras and Press photographers, Waltzing Matilda's crew stepped ashore.  They looked very fit.  Captain of the cutter, Phil Davenport, was greeted on the wharf by the Governor of Tasmania, Sir Hugh Binney, and Lady Binney.  In his summary of the voyage, the captain said it had been a "fairly good trip. There were no unusual incidents."

Waltzing Matilda gives the Muir brothers, Tasmanian boat builders, their third success.  Westward, sister ship of Waltzing Matilda has won the last two races.  Trade Winds has a corrected time advantage over Margaret Rintoul of about 3 hours and a 2-hour advantage over Waltzing Matilda.  Lass O' Luss, about 20 miles behind the leaders in the Derwent, also has an excellent chance on handicap.

ALL HELD LEAD

The first three yachts to finish all held the lead at one stage or another in the struggle up the Derwent.  With only four miles to go, at 8.15, Trade Winds had a lead of a mile and seemed certain to be first across the line.  At that stage, Margaret Rintoul was in second place and Waltzing Matilda was a half-mile further back.

Soon after turning into the Derwent, for the 45-mile run-up to Hobart, about 10 o'clock yesterday morning, the three leading craft lost the breeze and at dusk, after painfully slow progress through the day, the trio still had about 20 miles to go.

First to make the turn up the river was Waltzing Matilda.  Next, and closely behind, came Merv Daley's (Davey, Editor's correction) Trade Winds, and nudging her astern was Margaret Rintoul. Yachtsmen were not surprised when the cutter Trade Winds showed up.  The cutter had not been sighted since she led the bunched field off Eden, but as the other widely scattered craft failed to glimpse her yachtsmen generally put her in the lead.

Slowly moving up the river, Trade Winds took the lead, with Margaret Rintoul next and then Waltzing Matilda.

However, Margaret Rintoul reached Betsy Island on the northern side of Storm Bay, two miles ahead of Trade Winds.

Editor's Note:

Merv Davey went on to become the skipper of Margaret Rintoul the following year 1950 when they took line Honours and were beaten by Nerida sailed by Colin Hazelgrove (Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron) on handicap.  Sir James Hardy, the present owner of  Nerida now keeps her on a mooring at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron next to Margaret Rintoul 

PK June 2020