Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race 2024

News
2023
Celestial setting a star studded course

Celestial setting a star studded course

NEWS
25 Jun, 2023 10:05:00 AM

A1, CELESTIAL, Sail No: 9535, Owner: Sam Haynes, Skipper: Sam Haynes, State: NSW, Design: TP52, LOA: 15,9 Protected by copyright

Celestial setting a star studded course

In 2023 Celestial will enter the Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race from a position of strength. When the gun goes on 29 July, her crew will start trucking up the NSW coast, feeling quietly confident.

After a slew of great results, this JV designed TP52 put the cherry on top in 2022 by taking the Tattersalls Cup in the Rolex Sydney Hobart. Now skipper Sam Haynes says his crew is well prepared and has trained for all manner of eventualities.

Back in the water to contest the Audi Centre Blue Water Pointscore, Celestial is in great shape according to Haynes.

“On board this year will be most of the crew for the next Hobart, including Jack McCartney who runs the boat and is sort of the sailing master for the race. And he will be leading the team with me,” Sam Haynes says.

As a skipper, Haynes says he will oversee leadership, but is in excellent company, surrounded by tacticians and navigators he really trusts.

“This race can be quite slow and tactical. Often there are a lot of light wind days and it can be quite hard to get enough wind to get the boat trucking.

“There are a lot of current runs and you have got to be aware of the oceanography, to look at where the current is, and then play that off against where you think the wind strength is going to be best,” he says.

“Strategically it is a great race for the navigator – and the tactician –to get the boat into the best place for performance against things like adverse current."

This skipper's enthusiasm for the sport is telling. Whether he is talking about sailing inshore in small boats or offshore in something larger - it's highly contagious.

“It will be good to get up to the Goldy again, I haven’t been up there in a while,” he says reflecting on last year’s race.

Racing a TP52s is special, Haynes admits, with each boat thriving on the fast and competitive racing this group offers. Haynes even agrees to acknowledge the nascent existence of a race-within-a-race that forms inside the Noakes Sydney Gold Coast race fleet.

“Well, the TP52s are very close together on their rating. They are in the same weather window, they are in the vicinity of each other and in terms of the strategy and tactics - being used in that particular fleet within the over fleet - and you and can sort of see where each other go, and how close you are,” he says.

After winning line honours in the Brisbane to Gladstone race in March 2023, and fresh from Italy where he placed third in the J/70 Corinthian World Cup, Haynes is serious, but also circumspect. He appears like someone who is humbling himself to a game of skill and chance.

“We tend to be focused the whole time on trying to make the boat go fast. Talking about the speed loop - for example what have we go up in the air….What’s the angle and how are we managing the sailing. But that said, there is a lot of fun to be had on boats. Enjoying each other’s company, you know there is a lot of humour and camaraderie as well.”

Chatting in his rapid-fire style, I get the impression this friction only adds to the excitement. I wonder then if Haynes find keeping an eye on his counterparts irresistible?

“You are not necessarily seeing each other on the water so much – although quite often you are – but you are keeping a very close eye on that size of boat.”

As Haynes explains racing only adds to the vault of continual learning ocean racing offers.

“There are always going be adversities. It’s pitch black, it is freezing cold, there is always going to be something which you have to get through. There will always be something that breaks or something fails or doesn’t go according to plan.

“I think what experience has given me is an awareness that something will happen. And even if I don’t know what it is – I know that something will happen and if we can get ourselves through the those situations then things can be turned around.”

We are wishing Celestial and her crew the very best of luck in the Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Race.