Langman enters Tasmania's top regatta

But will it be his Open 66 or his 74 year old wooden classic?

High profile Sydney-based ocean racing yachtsman Sean Langman will officially launch the 2007 Boag’s Sailing South Race Week in late November – and plans to compete in Race Week with one of two boats he has entered for the 2006 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

One is the 74-year-old, gaff-rigged, timber-built Maluka that he is currently restoring for its first race to Hobart – in which it will be the smallest and oldest boat in the fleet.

The other is his Open 66 Zena (alias Grundig and AAPT), the so-called ‘skiff on steroids’ that he has twice skippered into second place in the line honours race in the Rolex Sydney Hobart as well as winning many other events on line honours and handicap.

“I’ve only once competed in Race Week but it is a wonderful event that includes races to interesting new places with wonderful scenery,” Langman said today. “We won, with Zena, the Isle of Caves Race, both on line and corrected time…I remember it as the best day race of my life. It was just like a Harry Potter adventure as we sailed around the Iron Pot and out into Betsy Island.”

Langman is turning back the clock with his restoration of Maluka that first sailed to Hobart in 1935, ten years before the first Sydney Hobart Race. Her then owners had rebuilt Maluka after she was washed ashore on the Victorian coast on her first attempt to sail to Tasmania the previous year.

Now Langman is rebuilding her once again for her first actual race to Hobart. “I want her to be as authentic as possible,” he said. “She will have the original Huon pine planking, the same gaff rig and down below we are replicating the original cabin.”

Langman has also nominated Zena for the Rolex Sydney Hobart. “She is up for sale so a new owner could take her south…or the same Tasmanian crew who chartered her last year may do the same.”

Langman, who now operates six boat building, maintenance and marina centres in New South Wales plus one at Port Huon in southern Tasmania, will officially launch 2007 Boag’s Sailing South Race Week at The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania on 23 November. “It’s such a great regatta…I will either skipper Maluka or jump aboard Zena,” he added.

Maluka is currently undergoing a full restoration at Sydney’s historic Woolwich Dock with the little boat to be re-launched in late November, just four weeks before the start of the Rolex Sydney Hobart.

Sailing South Race Week will again be sailed over four days, from 2-5 January 2007, with the RYCT again confident of good support from visiting ocean racing yachts as well as local yachts. It will open with the famous King of the Derwent race, followed over the next three days by short windward/leeward course races on the River Derwent and a distance race out into Storm Bay.

As usual, the event features after-race social activities at the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania where the majority of competing yachts will be berthed during Race Week.

“Sean is most enthusiastic about competing in Sailing South Race,” RYCT Commodore Marion Cooper said today. “We expect other yachts to stay on for Race Week following the Rolex Sydney Hobart and hope they will be joined by boats competing in the Melbourne to Hobart Race."

Notice of Race for the 2007 Sailing South Race Week is now available from the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania. Race Week will include classes for yachts to race under IRC and two Performance Handicap divisions, Sports Boats and Trailable Yachts, and two Divisions for Cruising Yachts. The IRC, PHS and Sports Boats/Trailable fleets will compete in the King of the Derwent, four windward/leeward races on the River Derwent and a distance race into Storm Bay or d’Entrecasteaux Channel. The Cruising Division race program will begin with a harbour race on 2 January, followed by two distance races down the Derwent and two windward/leeward races.