Pittwater to Coffs

Saturday 3rd January 2009 3:30pm

By Damian Devine

In the closest finish in the 28 year history of the race, Perpetual Mocean, the Marten 49 has taken line honours in the 2009 Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Yacht race. In a time of  24hrs 47mins 02 secs she beat the Farr 45, Pretty Woman by a mere 3 and a half minutes after 226nm of racing, crossing the finish line with kites flying in Coffs Harbour just before 1:00pm today. Pretty Woman's official time was 24hrs 50mins 39secs. 

For owner/skipper of Perpetual Mocean Bruce Hogan, RPAYC it was his first ocean race victory and he was "absolutely thrilled", and said he "felt a bit lucky, but a fantastic feeling to win my first ocean race" under the applause of the welcoming Coffs crowd as the champagne flowed at the dock just after the race finish.

Perpetual Mocean inside the breakwall heading toward  the finish line with Pretty Woman 3 and a 1/2 minutes behind - photo by Damian Devine

"It was a hard slog but the conditions were just ideal, very benign and the boat performed really well. I owe it all to the crew who were simply fantastic and with the experience of the likes of Peter Antill and Jason Rowed on board and these other guys, who gave it 100%. The wind speed was 10 -20 knots with the occasional gusts, but  it was just extraordinary and unusual with a South Easter all the way, so you couldn't ask for anything better for this race to stay on the one tack the whole way.

Winners are grinners, the Perpetual Mocean crew celebrate on the dock after the race - photo by Damian Devine

Asking about the tactics in the race, Bruce added "We just ran the rhumb line all the way in a real text book approach, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line and we didn't have any reason to vary from that, so we stuck to it all the way. There was enough breeze inshore so there was no need to chase anymore further out. We used what current there was inshore to our advantage.

"Pretty Woman pushed us all the way, we could never shake them, in the end it was very, very close. We just never gave up."

Richard Hudson, skipper and part owner of Pretty Woman along with RPAYC Commdore Russell Murphy and Michael Lockley said as he jumped onto the dock after the race, "three and a half minutes was that all?, ah gee I think if I look back I know where I could have found that 3 and a half minutes. That was a lot closer than I thought it would be. We didn't have any dramas, we just did all we needed to do, so it was pretty straight forward. We had very few sail changes and we put the little 5 A up twice through the race and that was it, we carried the jib top the whole way.

On accepting the bridesmaid tag for the race, Richard said, "of course it would have been nice to have beaten the Marten but they were the bigger boat and it was ideal conditions for them, you couldn't have scripted it better for what they wanted to do. But I was really happy with our start, our crew performed really well, they're a good team and the boat's still in tact, nothing broke. So can't complain and we made it to Coffs."

Tom Spithill, brother of AC skipper and one of four RPAYC youth graduates onboard Pretty Woman in his 2^nd Coffs race said, "Perpetaul Mocean was always going to be more of an inside boat, Ausmaid followed us wide for the first part, the Farr 40s were up high as well as Lexus, so we just tried to stay in the middle of the fleet and do something different to get in front of Perpetual Mocean. The breeze was true and we never had anything under 12 knots and the boat speed never went below 8s. So it was a good race."

Another of the crew Warren "Wazza" Taylor said "just this morning it was very close with both of us just power reaching but the 49 footer had the waterline length to maintain it's distance. If it had come down to square running it might have been a different story. "

But it wasn't to be for the Pretty Woman in 2009 and the Coffs Harbour Bell Trophy will be etched deservedly with Bruce Hogan's brand new Marten 49, Perpetual Mocean as Line Honours winner of the 28^th Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Ocean race.

And the record stands for another year at 18hrs 29mins 14secs.

For more information contact Damian Devine, Marketing & Publicity Manager on 0418 118 225.