A look at Chutzpah

Bruce Taylor talks about his new Reichel Pugh 40 footer and Rolex Sydney Hobart pretentions

For more than twenty years now it has seemed that it just wouldn’t be a genuine Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race without Victorian sailor Bruce Taylor at the helm of a cheekily named yacht called Chutzpah.

Year after year Taylor has made the long trek to Sydney for the race, despite the extra hassles and expense involved in making a bid for the Tattersall’s Cup from a home port 900 kilometres from the start line. The boat itself has changed over the years and of course so has the average age of the crew, a posse of weekend sailors who have been together for a long time now.

Fortunately, as Taylor and his crew have got older the Chutzpahs have grown in size, and this year they have cracked the 40 foot barrier with a striking new one-off design from the Reichel/Pugh drawing board.

“This is a real running and reaching boat. She carries her beam well aft and has hard chines for stability off the wind. There has been a lot of debate recently about whether you can really compete in this size of boat with the big guys under the current IRC rules and we searched around the world before we found a design that we thought could win,” Taylor says.

“I had one-off boats originally, but became disillusioned with IMS and moved into the Sydney 38 one design class. But in the last three or four years there has been a quantum leap in yacht design and I thought it was time to go back to a one-off boat.”

Taylor enjoyed great success in the Sydney 38’s. “The 38’s have been marvellous. Lou Abrahams has been my mentor for many years and it has been great racing against him in identical boats. The class has made us better sailors. But we want to go quicker.”

The new, skiff-like Chutzpah will be a lot faster and more exhilarating than a Sydney 38, and Taylor thinks that these more thrilling, fun ocean racers may be just what the sport needs.

“It is getting harder and harder for amateur sailors to remain competitive, and one of the problems is getting good crew. The really good guys are making it a career, and there are less and less young guys getting into keel boats. The pool of new talent is receding. We have to get late teenagers and 20 somethings into keelboats instead of skiffs. In part that is what we are trying to do with the new Chutzpah. She is amazingly fast. Lots of thrills.”

It really will be a whole new Rolex Sydney Hobart experience for Taylor and his crew, who are on a steep learning curve with this very different style of ocean racer. Chutzpah has only been in the water for four weeks. He is also bringing a different mindset to his ocean racing.

That might seem odd, given the Taylor’s great record so far. Chutzpahs have notched up an amazing seven divisional wins as well as a 2nd and 3rd overall.

Few sailors have matched Taylor’s consistency. Yet now he wants to be less consistent.

“Initially we were pretty anal,” Taylor says, “we thoroughly thought through every tactical decision….weighing the pros and cons. We have consistently finished in the top ten but at some stage the guys who win seem to take tactical decisions that seem like real gambles, that seem terribly risky at the time. They might be less consistent than we are. Sometimes they might finish in the top 30 instead of the top 10, but sometimes they will win.

“Now I think if there is a 30% chance I might take a punt. “We’ve been consistent bridesmaids. I want to be inconsistent. ”This is the sixth in a line of Chutzpahs that began with a Davidson 34 which the crew just about had to arm wrestle to Hobart. That was just the way racing boats were in those days. “I look back and think ‘how did we ever get to Hobart in a little sub like that’” Taylor quips. A second Davidson was followed by a Hick 35, a yacht that Taylor was convinced rated well enough to win the coveted
Tattersall’s Cup. He was right. Ed Psaltis and Bob Thomas sailed that same Hick 35, re-named AFR Midnight Rambler, to victory in the storm-swept 1998 race.

Taylor thinks this will be his last Chutzpah, but then adds “my wife says I’ve said that before.”