Sailing their Wild Oats

This afternoon I watched the start of the highly anticipated, time-honoured Sydney to Hobart yacht sink or swim race. It’s the only time you'll find people racing tooth and nail to be the first to get to Tasmania. Surely it's only for the prestige; but it would certainly make more sense if it was a race heading away from Tasmania.

I am not a fan of sailing or boats or sailing boats or races involving sailing boats, but there is something rather cathartic about watching those itsy bitsy (in the context of the vastness of the ocean) sailing machines slicing through the dark waters off Sydney heads.

Wild Oats is the darling of the race and has been for years. Actually, I’m not sure why any other competitor starts the race with the objective of winning it.  I know that’s not a very professional attitude or approach to competitive sport, but Wild Oats always wins, and has the most cash, and by far the coolest name, and the most talent for manning spinnakers and the like without capsizing.

This year they apparently have a marine on board who can hold his breath for five minutes in case there is trouble with the keel, which is evidently under the boat thingy and steers stuff or something.  I imagine that is his sole role on this fun-filled little roller coaster ride into oceanic hell.

I’m not sure if it is appropriate to call Wild Oats a boat, because that is far too common a name for a racing machine. I imagine they’d get highly offended at being called a boat. It would be like calling a F1 Ferrari a convertible sports car.

The fun for the crew of Wild Oats is definitely not in the journey. They are on a sprint, because this is a race, damn it, not a sail around the damn Caribbean. While one boat has hired a gourmet chef, and are replete with air conditioning, bedrooms with en suites, a wine cellar fully stocked with pinot noir and probably HD TV, the crew of Wild Oats must make doeth with freeze-dried vegemite sandwiches. Sounds yummo. And there will definitely be no sowing of any wild oats aboard Wild Oats.  I know, right?  These people don’t sound anything like sailors.

I don’t know about you, but I am not keen on being onboard a ‘boat’ whose fate rests on what side of the deck I walk or sit on. I also would not be too chuffed about having to wear an orange jumpsuit just in case I fell into the ocean and had to be found and dragged out in the middle of the night by a rescue crew that may or may not get there in time to save me from a rogue man-eating octopus.

Thus, I have deployed my own method of avoiding these dramatic scenarios by not going on a boat across the damn Tasman Sea during cyclone season.