Skipper Wendy Tuck has sailed round the world but never takes the Bass Strait for granted.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.Wendy Tuck is nothing if not resilient – even in the face of a storm. The Sydney to Hobart race veteran was skippering the 70-foot yacht Da Nang-Viet Nam in the 2015–16 Clipper Round the World when a rogue wave struck. The yacht was crossing the North Pacific in huge seas with winds blowing at more than 50 knots for 24 hours.
Where better to hear this nautical narrative than at the bistro of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia at Rushcutters Bay as preparations get under way for this year’s Sydney to Hobart? Behind us is a backdrop of boats of all shapes and sizes, from the super maxis to the smallest boat in the race, Kismet , a veteran launched in 1955.Rhett WymanTuck is a vegetarian. “Nothing with a face, an arse or relatives,” she says and orders the veg ravioli.
So what to do with no boat to sail? Tuck’s characteristic resilience shone through again. She posted on the CYCA’s WhatsApp two-handed group saying, “Hey, we need a boat”. “And that’s how we found Gizmo , which has been lent to us.”Gizmo has done three previous Sydney to Hobarts. Tuck has done 16. “We have still got a few little jobs to do but nothing huge,” she says. “Because Meg and I haven’t sailed together before, we have to do a 150-mile qualifier over 24 hours.
“I’m looking at the weather and looking for patterns. Maybe a front has come in much earlier – maybe that’s a pattern that will be repeated, so I need to be aware of that. We don’t have weather radar, but we have software that tells us whether we should go offshore or stay in close. You can follow it – or you can ignore it.“It doesn’t consider local anomalies, headlands and sea breezes and things like that. Around Jervis Bay, there is always weird stuff happening.
Food at the bistro is less complicated. Tuck describes the ravioli sauce as “very good”. The linguine is also adequate bistro fodder but with mussels that are far from pink or plump. It’s probably not a dish you would want to prepare within the confines of a penduluming galley at sea. A second glass of wine and there is no need for chocolate or chips.
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