As with anyone nominated for a lifetime membership, you could write books about the huge number of stories and contributions to the club. Brent didn’t step foot on a boat for the first 29 years of his life. Then, always up for a challenge, his first sailing experience started where most would consider to be the pinnacle of their sailing experience – a two-year world circumnavigation, with little or no sailing experience other than a brief period sailing on a Trimaran in the previous summer. I guess to a novice, a trimaran looks like a monohull with trainer wheels and…
Author: Tim Hampton
The 2022 Rolex Sydney to Hobart was my third and Ed Psaltis’ 40th, and his fourth on the current (fifth) Midnight Rambler (a Sydney 36-footer). The crew of 8 was a mix of his current Hobart-based crew and three of us who had sailed with Ed when he lived in Sydney. We operated a three-on, three-off watch system, with Ed and our navigator floating. Being on bow, I got up for each sail change and gybe, so spent most of the race in my wet weather gear with PFD and tether. For those of you who hear Ed speak at…
Ten years ago, shortly after moving to Sydney, I literally stepped onto Midnight Rambler, a boat of incredibly experienced offshore sailors, including the skipper and crew from the boat that won tragic 1998 Sydney to Hobart race. I ended up sailing intensively with them for the subsequent seven years before I moved back to Wellington. Hence, when the opportunity arose to re-join many of the crew for the 384 nautical mile from Sydney to Southport, Gold Coast race, I jumped at it – not to mention the opportunity to catch up with my wife in Sydney. Sydney to Southport is…