Sights on sailing

There are two salon areas on offer – the upper salon with comfortable lounge seating, and the formal dining area taking full advantage of the vista. Forward and below decks, a generous second salon offers additional areas for lounging and entertainment.

Guest accommodation is below and rear of the salon, with three Staterooms featuring their own en suites. Oyster’s innovative floating interior design delivers not only a visual feast, but a practical solution too, minimising noise and vibration.

Skipper of Maritimo 100 – Peter ‘Scallops’ Jones – shared some interesting insights into the delivery of the Oyster from Newport Rhode Island and the program of works being undertaken, in the lead up to the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

“Oysters are magnificent vessels and the attention to detail from the build process and everything throughout is superb,” he pointed out. “They’re a really good boat to play with and with the enhancements we are making it will be a truly magnificent gentleman’s sailing yacht.

“Following the purchase of the Oyster 100 by the Barry-Cotter family, I led a delivery crew that picked up the boat in Newport, Rhode Island and sailed it to the Gold Coast, through the Panama Canal and then via Tahiti.

“It was incredibly enjoyable getting from the North Pacific down to the South Pacific and arriving in Tahiti. It just felt like you’d broken the back of the journey when arriving in Tahiti. We probably had about 12 days of real Trade Wind sailing, with 24 hours a day of 12 to 14 knots of boat speed.

“As long as the boat has sprung sheets, wind angles of about 50–55 degrees, the boat will do 14 knots in 14 knots of breeze and 16 in 16 knots. It’s quite a pleasure to sail and I was thinking wow this is about as much fun as a person can have. We were smashing out around 300 nautical miles a day.

“With 30.40 metres of boat, you certainly don’t pitch and roll much. And with the mast reaching 42 metres off the deck and around 493 square metres of working sail area, it just powers its way through the sea very comfortably.

“Our sail wardrobe includes one big and very bright orange asymmetrical spinnaker, which is in a sock, so basically straight forward to set with winching up and down – it’s a decent size. And then we’ve got a furling reacher and a furling jib and an in boom furling main, which is fully battened.

“The pre-racing works program included replacing all these working sails. The mainsail, jib and the reacher, which are made up here on the Gold Coast by our local sailmaker – Sail Inc. The reacher is massive with a 155 percent overlap and there’s huge capstans at the mast for running the halyards, and four major primary hydraulic winches up the back of the boat. It’s a great setup for gentlemanly racing!

“In addition to the new sails, we’ve working through replacing a lot of the PLCs, which help run our hydraulics on the boat. We have our experts AT Hydraulics working alongside us at the moment to redo a lot of hydraulic work and upgrade it. As far as electrical, we are obviously swapping it out from European and American to new Australian wiring. Electrical and hydraulics on a boat like this are significant because they run everywhere and run everything.

“We’re also currently rebuilding the gearbox, as sampling has identified some metal filings in the oil. The Cummins 355hp drives the box and the three-bladed feathering propellor.”

Once the works and cleanup are all complete, the Maritimo livery will be applied to the boom, which is around a metre high and 15 metres long. Interestingly, that boom area is not that far shy of the size of the livery on the hull of the TP52.

Maritimo 100 will be applied to the stern in gold and with the dark blue hull and gold cove line. The boat will look spectacular and very prestigious.

“The intention at the moment is to head down to Sydney mid to late November and compete in the Cabbage Tree Island Race 6 December with the full Sydney Hobart crew,” Scallops continued.

“Then we might do the Maxi Cup big boat series, as the plan is to spend quite a bit more time with the crew around early December.

“Following the Sydney Hobart the next couple of years is probably pretty open at the moment. Plan A would be to aim to get to New Zealand in February and then possibly back for the Sydney-Nouméa Race in May 2025. But nothing’s really locked in as yet. It’s up to the Barry-Cotter family to have a look at the program as we go.

“The real focus right here right now is the Sydney Hobart. We’ll be going down to Hobart with a crew of  15.

“It’s really a family affair with Bill Barry-Cotter and his brother Kendal, who are both very experienced in their own right, along with some senior Maritimo management and some close life-long friends of Bill’s. Then a nucleus of very experienced crew who have been sailing on Maritimo 54 and also the TP52, which includes myself.

“Bill and I have been very busy with all the logistics of getting the boat and everything involved ready for action. This has been many months in the planning with the purchase of the yacht, the delivery and then the list of works.

“I know Bill is very excited about the fact that it’s all coming together and culminating in competing in this very prestigious event, especially with a close group of family and friends.

“This is what Bill wanted to do and in the way that Bill wanted to do it. This program really talks to Bill’s life-long love of sailing and competition – but this time he wants to do the trip in comfort. So, this time we’re even bringing our own cook!”

Absolutely the competitive spirit is alive and strong within Maritimo, and so too are the deep sense of fun and quest for adventure. Isn’t that what sailing and boating are all about after all?

maritimo.com.au