ACROSS FIVE DECADES PHOTOGRAPHING THE SYDNEY YACHT RACE

RICHARD BENNETT ACROSS FIVE DECADES PHOTOGRAPHING THE SYDNEY HOBART YACHT RACE

EDITED BY MARK WHITTAKER

LIMITED EDITION BOOK

This specially printed photography book, Across Five Decades: Photographing the Sydney Hobart yacht race, is limited to an edition of books.

(The number of entries in the 75th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race) and five not-for-sale author copies.

Edition number of

Signed by Richard Bennett

Date

1 PROLOGUE

People often tell me how lucky I am to have made a living doing something I love so much. I agree with them. I do love my work. But neither my profession, nor my career, has anything to do with luck.

My life, and my mindset, changed forever the day, as a boy, I was taken out to Hartz Mountain. From the summit, I saw a magical landscape that most Tasmanians didn’t know existed. For me, that moment started an obsession with wild places, and a desire to capture the drama they evoke on film. To the west, the magnificent jagged silhouette of Federation Peak dominated the skyline, and to the south, Precipitous Bluff rose sheer for 4000 feet out of the valley. Beyond that lay the south-west coast. I started bushwalking regularly after that, and bought my first camera. In 1965, I attended mountaineering school at Mount Cook on the Tasman Glacier, and in 1969, I was selected to travel to Peru as a member of ’s first Andean Expedition.

The hardships and successes of the Andean Expedition taught me that I could achieve anything that I wanted. I decided that I was going to be a professional photographer. My love of wild places was the catalyst for my career. It has also had the greatest influence on how I live my life. Wilderness gave me the mindset, and the skills, to create a successful business that revolves around wilderness, light aircraft, photography and the things I love.

In 1974 I took a scenic flight over the Sydney Hobart fleet. I took some aerial photographs. That led to a career niche, and a passion, that I love just as much today as I did nearly half a century ago. I love everything about the Sydney Hobart: the many moods of the sea, the sense of participation in a great adventure, the camaraderie, the tactics, sensing the proximity of the elements, the wildness of the sea, the gales, the different light, and the dramatic coastline.

All the elements are at play out there. It takes so much planning, yet as a photographer, you have to deal with whatever comes up. For me, yacht race photography is about dramatic seascapes, light, weather and © Alice Bennett timing. It’s about putting all those elements together. The final great pleasure of this project for me, is time invested in crafting a beautiful, moody print that tells a story, not just about the yacht, but the seascape and the elements as well. And for the yachties, nothing preserves their personal Sydney Hobart history like a well-crafted photograph that will last for several generations.

2 3 By 1975, I had enough photography work to be a full-time professional and that’s reflected in the way I had learnt photography by correspondence. One of the lessons was about showing speed in a photograph by I tackled that year’s race. I hired a commercial pilot, Rex Godfrey, and briefed him on my plans to photograph using blur. I went out into the paddock and got my dad to drive his tractor down the hill as fast as it would go. every boat. After chatting, we decided we’d make an event of it. We took our wives with us overnight to I tracked him down the hill, holding the tractor steadily in the view finder while clicking off frames with a slow Flinders Island in Bass Strait, figuring that we’d fly out to the rhumb line in the morning and get the boats shutter speed. When I developed my pictures, the old Massey Ferguson tractor was sharp as a tack while the riding some swell on the forecast north-easter. background was all blurred, just as it was meant to be. I knew I was good at it. I’d had years of practice shooting rabbits with a rifle for pocket money. Twenty pence each. It gave me the skills to track a yacht with a long lens So, early on December 28, I rang the Royal Yacht Club of . while being battered by 130km/h winds. It doesn’t matter how fast your shutter speeds are. If you can’t track your subject, there’s going to be blur. “G’day, Richard Bennett here. I want to photograph the yachts. Where are the race leaders?” I shot like a marksman. You line up your target, you take in a breath and let half the breath out. You freeze and “Kialoa’s off St Helens.” you concentrate on the target. There’s a conscious thought process with each shot.

“Come again.” I thought he said she was off St Helens, which was more than 100 kilometres south of us on So, I took a few shots of Kialoa III with the sun behind those beautiful red, white and blue spinnakers and the the Tasmanian east coast… and there was no way a boat could have got there in such a short time. light gleaming off the waves. We did a circuit then headed over to the American ketch Windward Passage which was only 20 minutes behind. These big, glamorous American boats were a new thing for the Sydney “Kialoa’s going to beat the race record. She’s doing 23 knots and she’s off St Helens.” Hobart and they were strutting their stuff that afternoon. We got in behind Windward Passage and shot her with the wake sizzling out of the stern like a ski boat. It was a great shot that even 20 years later was used as I put the phone down. “Hey Rex, come on.” We raced out to the airstrip and jumped into the Cessna 172 the cover of a magazine. and took off. We worked our way through the fleet, shooting as many as we could find, totally focussed on the fleet. It was afternoon by the time we found Kialoa III off , halfway down the coast. And wasn’t she a We landed at Cambridge airport near Hobart in the late afternoon. Rex and I were over the moon. It had been sight to behold. Magnificent! The maxi ketch was flying two spinnakers and a blooper, surfing down on the a great day’s flying for Rex and I knew I had some excellent pictures in the bag, but a sudden realisation took north-easter. With my thoughts on backlight and shadows on the water, I got Rex to drop down and approach the gloss off somewhat. her from the side with the sun behind her. I opened my cockpit window and stuck my 150mm Sonnar lens out and squeezed the shutter button. “Oh Bugger!” I said to Rex as we came in to land.

You need to have a feeling for the angles if you want to get sharp edges shooting from the air. If you shoot at “What’s the matter?” right angles to the aeroplane, it’s going to be blurred because of the speed of the aircraft, not to mention the up-and-down movement and the buffeting of the wind on your camera. I took the lens hood off the camera “Maureen and Sue!” We’d left our wives on Flinders Island. to reduce wind drag on it.

If you get the pilot to approach at an angle that’s not quite head on and you shoot as far forward as you can from the side of the plane, there’s a brief window where you can get sharpness.

4 5 KIALOA III 1975

Jim Kilroy’s Kialoa III was a wonderful sight to behold. She was planing at 23 knots on her way to breaking the race record in two days, 14 hours, 36 minutes and 56 seconds. The record stood for 21 years.

6 7 WINDWARD PASSAGE 1975

One of the most beautiful and timeless yachts of the past 50 years, Windward Passage encountered a wind shift in the 1975 race which the crew had not identified soon enough. They lost 20 minutes and could not make up the time against Kialoa III. Winning this yacht race is not just about going fast, but having the right strategy and adapting to the ever-changing conditions.

8 9 We tore up to Flinders Island the next morning to pick up our wives and then flew out to the rhumb line and picked up a few more boats on our way south. As hard as I would try over the next 40 years and more, I would never actually manage to capture every boat in the race.

I got the prints done as fast as you could in those days at the local lab and took them down to Constitution Dock. I think I might have upgraded my display to a desk and easel by then. I saw the owner of Kialoa III, Jim Kilroy, heading towards me with the crew. He was on a high, having set a race record that was going to last for 21 years and I just happened to have that beautiful backlit picture of his boat. I showed him the print and he didn’t need to think about it long. “I’ll take that one in the largest size you’ve got (20 inches by 16 inches – what we’d call A2 these days). How many in the crew? Twenty-two? Okay we’ll take 23 of those.” They were $35 each at a time when the average weekly earnings in Australia was $146.

Then the owner of Windward Passage showed up and placed a similar order. Some of the crew bought ten copies for themselves in the same size. I sold somewhere between 60 and 80 prints of those two boats alone. Then there were all the other owners and crew coming through who were almost as keen about the pictures of their boats.

I realised I had a new career.

And, it’s still going. I would never have dreamed that 46 years later I would sell gallery-quality prints of those 1975 shots of Kialoa III and Windward Passage for $1500 a print.

The following year, 1976, I met Nick Tanner, the chief pilot at Tasair. He was a gifted flyer who had the ability to always put me in the right spot, irrespective of conditions. I got a large sign with my name on it to stick on the side of the Cessna 172, and Nick started taking me close enough for the crews to be able to read it. Over the coming years I used a few great pilots. Most of them on their way to careers flying jets for the big airlines - which can’t be nearly as much fun as buzzing the fleet in a howling south-wester over the cliffs of the .

APOLLO 1975

Apollo was designed by Ben Lexcen for high-profile Australian businessman Alan Bond. Apollo was later owned by Jack Rooklyn who took line honours in the 1978 Sydney Hobart.

10 11 TINA OF MELBOURNE 1978

Precision aerial photography is a partnership between pilot and photographer. The Cessna 172 had the aerodynamics for my style of photography and Nick Tanner could manoeuvre into the perfect position for my shot. This photograph is a classic example of that partnership, where I have been able to use the wake of the boat as a strong compositional element leading the eye to the subject. It was taken off the west coast of Tasmania during the Melbourne Hobart race which finishes at the same time as the Sydney Hobart race. Nick taught me what could be achieved with light aircraft and he taught me to have confidence in the air. This was also the first year I used the 6x7 Pentax camera. It had a larger negative than the Hasselblad, which gave me greater flexibility in enlarging the image and cropping images without losing quality, and a shutter speed that was twice as fast.

I wanted to tell the story of the sea state: the clouds, the wind; the wave pattern. I wanted to show how the wake peeled off the boat. How the mutton birds wheeled. I wanted to show the sea mist and the cloud pattern. But I wondered if I could also get the spectacular cliffs of the Tasmanian east coast into the shot. That became the next important thing for me to learn - how to produce a beautiful seascape that would stand as a photograph even without a single yacht in it.

I realised early on, that shooting from high above the boats gave only a water background. And it didn’t show the weather either. Weather is such an important aspect of Tasmanian life; it becomes a part of us. In other states, they cancel events because of the weather. Not here. If you didn’t do things because of rain or wind in Tasmania, you’d get nothing done. I don’t wait for sunny days to go and take pictures. I love storms. Absolutely love them. And the only way to capture their majesty is from down low, where you can get sky in the top of the frame and water in the bottom. And with some of the most amazing dolerite columns and sea cliffs forming the running rail for the Sydney Hobart home bend, I wanted to capture it all in a single frame.

12 13 SISKA 1979

Siska, skippered by Rolly Tasker, took line honours in the 810 nautical mile Great Circle race around Tasmania. As she was approaching the Maatsuyker Islands we flew down to find her. At South Cape, a front was coming through. The sky was inky black with rain and low cloud. We couldn’t find a boat in that weather so we went in to Cox Bight and landed on the beach where we found wilderness guide Bob Geeves with a group camped by the stream at Freney Lagoon. Bob was very surprised to see us with a north-westerly gale blowing.

After a mug of tea and a chat we took off. When we banked into the wind, our little Cessna achieved an amazing rate of climb as we hit the north-wester. As we turned out to sea, the front had passed and there was one white cap larger than the rest. It was Siska reefed down and revelling in the strong conditions. The mutton birds were out there too!

14 15 MARGARET RINTOUL II 1980

Margaret Rintoul II was the original Ragamuffin built by Syd Fischer in 1969. Here she is sailed by Stan Edwards as she beats into a south-westerly approaching .

16 17 RAGAMUFFIN 1980 HITCHHIKER 1982 Syd Fischer’s Ragamuffin close under the dramatic dolerite sea cliffs as she rounds Tasman Island. The year before, Ragamuffin had won the Admirals Cup which included the infamous Fastnet Race in which 15 sailors There was a sense of romance about this boat. She tended to roll from side to side. I recall that Tasmanian and three rescuers were killed. yachtsman Charles Blundell, “Chas from Tas” was on board, one of Tasmania’s yachting greats.

18 19 STYX 1982

Styx has been described as a 40 foot rocket ship. At Tasman Island during strong north-easterlies, there is a SUNSEEKER 1982 now famous gust of wind which howls down from the high cliffs. I have seen two boats dismasted as a result. Here during the 1982 Sydney Hobart race Styx, skippered by Joe Abraham, was on the receiving end and Late afternoon light on the east coast of Tasmania. I love the detail in the wake and the following wave. I was there to capture this image. Thirty seconds later her mast was parallel with the water. Styx finished 19th This tells the story of a boat in harmony with the sea. That she appears to be living up to her name makes it over the line. even sweeter.

20 21 INDULGENCE 1983

A fresh north-easter was blowing down the east coast. The British Southern Cross Cup team boat Indulgence VENGEANCE 1983 broached and broke two very expensive titanium spinnaker poles. Then she did a Chinese gybe, where the upper section of the mainsail went across the boat and filled, while the lower section and boom remained on One of the early maxis, Vengeance, skippered by David Kellett, rounding Tasman Island. Vengeance had taken line the original side. The incident and the resulting photographs were published around the world and influenced honours in 1981. Here she took my breath away with that beautiful red and yellow against the dolerite columns. the decision to measure the righting moment of Sydney Hobart yachts.

22 23 PILGRIM 1983

Pilgrim with spinnaker and blooper off Maria Island. The crew are wearing woollen jumpers unlike modern crews with their matching high-tech waterproof outfits.

Conditions were so good that day in 1983 that as we flew back to Cambridge, pilot Nick Tanner asked how many rolls of film I had shot. I counted them. I had averaged four frames for each boat. Nick deduced that we had taken one photograph every 46 seconds for five and a half hours. That was a lot of concentration and steep turns.

24 25 I was a sponge for anything that kept me motivated. I always wanted to learn more.

Before I started shooting the yacht race, I had tried to join the Institute of Australian Photography (IAP). For two years they wouldn’t let me in because they saw me as a “backyarder”. And, in some respects I was. Rather than set up my business where all the people lived, I’d figured it was a good idea to build my studio on the family farm outside , in the south of the state. Whenever I got a picture in , they would refer to me as, “Geeveston orchardist and photographer” or perhaps, “mountaineer and photographer”, rather than just “Richard Bennett photographer”. And the IAP only wanted professional snappers.

Growing up, I had been destined to be an apple orchardist like Dad and my grandfather. But somewhere in there a thirst for adventure started taking me to the top of mountains. And while climbing out in the remote south-west of Tasmania and in New Zealand in the late 1960s, I’d started taking a camera along.

I saw an advertisement in a magazine for the Famous Photographers School based in Connecticut, USA. It had a correspondence curriculum put together by some of the greats of photography like Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Alfred Eisenstaedt. I might not have known who they were, but I knew I wanted to do their course. It cost $637 at a time when I was earning $16 a week labouring for Dad in the orchard.

You’d read a chapter, do the lesson, shoot it, process it and send it to America to have it critiqued by these greats. So, I learnt photography in isolation, between chipping weeds and pruning apple trees.

It’s easy to dream the big dreams when you’re standing at the top of a 20,000-footer in the Andes that had never been climbed before - as I did on numerous occasions in 1969 with the Australian Andean Expedition. I got it into my head that I wanted to take pictures for a living.

In August 1973, I did manage to convince the IAP that I was a real photographer. After that, I never missed a meeting, ever. I really enjoyed meeting the other photographers, being friends with them, sharing ideas. In time, I became Tasmanian president and national president and would go on to hold just about every office within the organisation.

And while weddings, family portraits and a bit of commercial work for the paper mill were my bread and butter in that period, my two great photographic passions were the wilderness and the yacht race. For most people, birthdays or Christmas or footy finals punctuate their year. For me, it became the Sydney Hobart. It all revolved around the race. SHOGUN 1984 In 1984, I went out to shoot my 11th race but a strong southerly off the NSW coast, combined with rough seas and then difficult conditions in Bass Strait, meant that most of the fleet didn’t arrive in my patch. There were only 46 boats left in the race when I flew around Tasman Island. I saw the most beautiful backlight in my favourite gunmetal colours streaming through Out of 151 starters, only 46 boats made it to Hobart. It had never occurred to me that the Sydney Hobart Tasman Passage, the narrow gap between and Tasman Island where you can see right the way up to Port Arthur, but not a boat to be seen. Then, to fleet would not arrive. the north, I spotted a red, blue and yellow spinnaker. “Too far away,” I thought, deciding to stay put and orbit for 20 minutes or so as the spinnaker approached. “The light won’t hold,” I thought. “I am not that lucky.” And it was expensive! Every hour in the air cost. But, the light did hold and Shogun sailed into the perfect So, it was slim pickings for pilot Nick Tanner and me as we scoured the seas for survivors off the Tasman Peninsula. shot. When preparedness and opportunity meet great things sometimes do happen. This Shogun picture won a gold award at the Professional Photographers of America Awards in 1985. It also won a gold award at the Australian National Print Awards and the Ilford Trophy for the highest scoring entry that year.

26 27 The Shogun picture made my year. As gratifying as the success of that shot was though, I knew I’d missed the real action - when those 105 yachts were getting pummelled out of the race. Imagine the pictures there would have been out there!

I realised I had to shoot the boats before they got to Tasmania. The yachties were used to seeing lovely pictures of their boats leaving Sydney Harbour in beautiful weather. And then they’d see my pictures of them off the Tasmanian coast, but nobody had pictures in between - where the real action happened. I’d only done the Flinders Island thing in 1975 when it hadn’t worked so well.

So, I approached my pilot, “Hey Nick, I want to photograph storms out at sea. How do we do that?”

“You need an Aero Commander,” he said. “We’ve got one. It’s got a high wing. It’s all weather. It’s got long endurance.”

I took a look at it and could see that the door was directly behind the propeller so I could imagine the blast if I stuck my head out while we were doing 120 knots (222km/h). “I can’t work out of that.”

“We could take the door off,” he said.

“You can take the door off it?” Who knew?

Nick suggested I lie on the floor to get my head below the propeller.

“Nick, I’m not sure about this.”

“Let’s give it a go. And we’ll work something out with the charter costs if it doesn’t work.”

The Aero Commander gave us about six hours in the air compared to four hours for the Cessna. In reality, our time in the air is often more limited by your bladder capacity than your fuel capacity. So, I’m always careful not to drink much before going up.

Anyway, in 1985 I got my sticky name plate and stuck it on the side of the Aero Commander and off we went up to Sydney.

My strategy was to take a twin-engine Aero Commander to Sydney, then hire a Cessna 172 and photograph the fleet along the coast off Wollongong before there were retirements. These images ensured that I photographed almost every yacht before flying out to sea on the next day looking for rough weather. CHALLENGE III 1985

Lou Abrahams’ Challenge III was photographed on Boxing Day off Wollongong in the company of several other boats. Late afternoon light and a stormy sky added to the beautiful feel of the image. Lou was a gentle, appreciative man, who always came along to our display at Constitution Dock. He became such a good customer that I knew his address from memory.

28 29 After shooting off Wollongong, we flew back to Camden aerodrome south-west of Sydney, got in the Aero Commander and flew down to Merimbula on the NSW far south coast, ready to shoot the real action. When we went up the next day and I took the door off, it was darn chilly up there. Nick was rugged up in oil skins like Biggles. It was so windy the insulation was being blown out of the lining. I laid down on an old sleeping bag I’d gaffer taped to the floor for cushioning. It was an horrendous environment, so noisy and cold. The first time I stuck my head out, it blew my headset straight off my head. I had to regather it and tape it down. But Nick was right; there was about a foot of space below the blast zone where I could shoot from. Because we were travelling at 120 knots, I had to shoot very much forward and aft to keep sharp. Anything even a little out to the side would blur.

But, for the first time, I was able to produce pictures of yachts in the wild weather. They look so small against the untamed vastness of the oceans.

We followed the fleet down to Tasmania and were still able to get my trademark shots off the coast. It worked really well. We had a portfolio for almost every boat in the race. Despite all my efforts, one or two had eluded me.

While I now had the capability to shoot in storms, finding them wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. You’d get a forecast for a huge blow and it would come up during the night. I’d get up in the morning ready to get stuck into it and I’d get a race report: eight boats retired, horrendous seas. But by the time we got out there at daylight, the storm would have passed, and we’d be left with just lumpy seas and battered boats.

The observation has been made that the harder it blows, the happier I am. It’s true. That’s where the excitement is. Yachties love a picture of their boat perfectly tuned going like the clappers.

STARLIGHT EXPRESS 1985

The Aero Commander enabled us to photograph offshore and shoot images that showed how tough the race can be. The pocket maxi Starlight Express was photographed on the second day beating into a hard southerly. This photograph was used by the Cascade Brewery the next year on their annual Sydney Hobart yacht race beer can and was widely published.

30 31 FIRETEL 1986

Bob Lawler’s 30-footer Firetel had a long way to go to Hobart. There was quite a big leftover sea from the southerly that had hit the fleet during the night. Only one man was on deck. I wanted to capture the solitude of a lonely boat on a vast ocean.

32 33 I was always looking for the strongest breeze and in 1990 a south-westerly gale was blowing on the south coast of Tasmania where the Melbourne Hobart “West coaster” fleet was approaching. That was the place to be, and so we headed down there making very slow, expensive progress into the 50-knot gale. Paying for air charter sharpens the eyesight, and as we approached South Cape I noticed some white water which looked a little different to the whitecaps and breaking waves all around.

We came down, buffeted by the wind, and found Wild Thing approaching. She was surfing down eight-metre waves at amazing speeds. Twenty-eight knots, I later learned. When a boat is surfing downwind, there is a peak of the action. It comes up onto the crest and hesitates, and then it starts to surf. I stuck my head out of the plane, watching for the peak. I was fortunate that she was nearing the top of the wave and the first frame I shot was this image. People imagine that you’ve got the camera on motor drive and eventually you’ll get the perfect shot. But I only ever take one of two shots per pass. Sometimes you go around the boat four or five times trying to coordinate your pass with the peak of the action and don’t take a single shot. But we nailed it with this one.

Note the hole in the water behind the boat. This image ended up being published in most of the yachting magazines around the world. I produced a poster which I sold in 46 countries and some yachties would go on referring to me as “the man who shot the Wild Thing picture”. This has been the most successful photograph of my career. And not just for me. A recent article about skipper Grant Wharington, claimed that this picture “established Wharington’s reputation in one image”.

WILD THING 1990

34 35 ZERO III 1992

By the 1990s, the Sydney Hobart was attracting entries from around the world. Here Zero III, a Japanese boat, is tacking in a strong south-westerly towards the last great corner in the race, Tasman Island. I asked the pilot to go a bit higher so I could get a sense of scale with the sea cliffs, The Monkeys, behind. It became the cover of my first yachting book Ocean Classics.

36 37 ICE FIRE 1992

Icefire sailed across the from New Zealand to compete. She was right on the corner rounding Tasman Island when a south-westerly front came through and the sea lumped up very quickly.

38 39 NINETY-SEVEN 1993

In 1993, the fleet was hit by a severe storm. One of those ones that eluded me in the night. Only 38 boats finished out of 104 starters - a worse attrition rate than the infamous 1998 race. Two boats sank and one man spent five hours in the water without a lifejacket after being washed overboard at 11pm. The papers were full of John Quinn’s miraculous rescue when Ninety-Seven came sneaking down the coast at the head of the fleet. Most boats had gone a long way east out to sea, but skipper Andrew Strachan took Ninety-Seven west into Bass Strait, a strategy which saw it beat much larger boats to take line honours after four days and fifty-four minutes – the second slowest winning time that I’ve witnessed. At 14.3 metres, she was also the smallest line-honours winner that I can remember. Much of the race was wet and foggy, the worst conditions for photography. I timed the flight to catch her off Tasman Island, and got her in front of my favourite location, The Monkeys, again.

40 41 In 1994, with the 50th Sydney Hobart race looming, the fleet was shaping up to be the largest ever. I wanted to photograph them all but it was going to be next to impossible with upwards of 370 boats. My daughter Alice was 16 at the time and aspired to be a photographer, so I brought her up to Sydney, put her in her own aircraft and sent her off to shoot half the fleet for me.

It wasn’t actually as simple as that. Alice had already had quite a bit of preparation. I’d previously taken her with me and explained how to do it. I sent her out with a flying instructor and told him to take her up and do some attempted forced landings and some stalls. “I want you to instil in Alice confidence in the pilot and in the aircraft. So, take her flying and teach her that aeroplanes don’t fall out of the sky.”

Soon after, The Times of London contacted me wanting a shot of a British round-the-world yachtsman, Mike Golding, who was in our neck of the woods. I couldn’t go, so I sent Alice up to find him with all those concepts about aperture and shutter speed whirring in her head. She nailed it. And so, by 16 years of age, she’d been published in The Times.

The 1994 race was a great success for us. When the boats reached Tasmania, a 25-knot south-wester blew across Storm Bay every day and we got the most wonderful pictures. We did a book on the race. It was photographed in four days with 57 hours of flying time. The book did well and the ABC’s Australian Story later did a lovely story about our relationship and me teaching Alice aerial photography, philosophy and achieving life goals.

TASMANIA 1994

The 50th Sydney Hobart was the biggest yacht race in history at the time, with a fleet of 372 yachts - three times the size of previous races. My daughter Alice and I used six planes and helicopters to shoot them. We flew 57 hours with our two Tasair pilots, Ralph Schwertner and John Pugh, and captured all but a handful of boats. Here, Bob Clifford’s maxi ketch Tasmania is passing the north-east tip of Tasmania on her way to her line honours victory, two hours outside Kialoa III’s 1975 record.

42 43 APOLLO II 1994 CENTREFOLD 1994 I love a strong breeze on the nose of the plane. It means we can fly more slowly and move in from a higher angle A fresh south-westerly blew consistently for three days across Storm Bay in 1994 making perfect conditions to feature the crew on the rail. Notice that nobody is waving. I make it known that waving spoils photographs. for aerial photography. It is not often that I compose with another boat in the background but this worked These guys are racing, not waving at the sky being photographed. One image that I planned to feature in this well with behind. It also shows how tight the race can be, that after 628 nautical miles it can still book was scrapped because one of the crew members waved just at the wrong time. Apollo II was owned by be neck and neck. David and Penny Leach, who bought the yacht the week before the start of the race.

44 45 FREMANTLE DOCTOR 1994 ROLL CLOUD 1996

This photograph of Fremantle Doctor is one of my all-time favourites. I love explaining the sea state, and here you can see the effect of the strong south-wester On Boxing Day 1996, I was photographing the fleet with a fresh north-easter and bright sunshine until east on the surface. The low angle of the sun just after dawn in Storm Bay provides a strong cross light that gives shape and dimension to the waves. I wanted Cape of Wollongong this roll cloud heralded the forecast southerly change. Flying from bright sunlight into the dull, Raoul in the background. I wanted the horizon about two thirds of the way up the shot. And I wanted to show just how wet it can be. I waited for the moment flat, wet gloom under this roll cloud was an eerie experience. Spinnakers quickly disappeared and masts were with maximum spray over the deck. There’s no Sydney Harbour glamour here. It’s hard work. A small sail on the horizon adds the finishing touch. soon almost flat on the water.

46 47 In 1998, Alice and I flew up to Sydney again in the Aero Commander with two pilots. We got the two Cessnas again on the first day and shot most of the fleet, which scudded down the coast in a lively, backlit sea. Their spinnakers were up and there was a hint of sea mist. By the morning of day two, even the slowest boats were ahead of the race record, flying along ahead of the north-easter. None of us had any idea of what lay ahead; that some of the pictures we’d taken yesterday would be the last frames ever captured of some of these yachts, whose names would become etched into the history of the race.

© Alice Bennett

WINSTON CHURCHILL 1998

Winston Churchill sailed in the first Sydney Hobart in 1945, was second over the line and third on handicap. Photographed here on Boxing Bay, Winston Churchill was lost the following afternoon after falling off a massive wave 20 miles south-east of Twofold Bay about five hours after the storm hit the fleet.

48 49 My pilot, Ralph Schwertner, phoned the weather bureau early on the morning of December 27. I was in the motel We got down as low as Ralph could. I pulled off the fibreglass plug door and lay down on my sleeping bag, secured room with him and could get the gist of what they were telling him. Wind 210 degrees at 40 knots at 2000 feet. by a harness, and got down to the business of taking pictures. I was centred down that viewfinder and out along Scattered cloud from 1000 to 2500 feet. Turbulence, locally severe. the 150mm lens. Nailing those pictures. The maelstrom going on all around was simply a part of my composition. There was an awful lot of wind coming through that door. It was freezing. But it was always windy and cold up there. When he hung up, I asked how long it was going to blow for. We were flying at 110 knots, and I was poking my head out of a bouncing plane into this 200-kilometre an hour blast. It’s very difficult to do. My fastest shutter speed was 1/1000th of a second - much slower than the modern “Twenty-four hours. No change,” Ralph said. “I’ve never heard of it blowing 40 knots out here for 24 hours with digitals. Not every frame I got was sharp. no change. That’s going to be one hell of a sea.” He was as excited as I was. As a charter pilot, he wants his clients to go home with a good result. And I was certainly hopeful that this was the one we’d been waiting for. We were perfectly But, I got a great shot of Aspect Computing reefed right down with a huge wave breaking next to the famous set up for a big blow. We had the airmen, we had the plane, and I had Alice with me to help change the film. If the Sailors-with-disAbilities boat. forecast was right, maybe at last this would be the storm that wasn’t over before we got there. We’d been coming up to NSW for 14 years and I’d spent $140,000 in aircraft hire waiting for this day. We got up into the air early and Back in the 80s, I’d had a mentor who’d said to me, “Richard, there is no known antidote for persistence. headed straight for the rhumb line. Our co-pilot, John Townley, flew us out there before Ralph took over when it When preparedness meets opportunity and it all comes together, with persistence, you’ll get where you’re going.” was time to shoot. We found Sayonara out towards the front of the fleet. She was going hard into the south-wester, Well, here it was. I was there. This was it. reefed down, sailing beautifully. But the wind wasn’t blowing anywhere near as strong as the predicted 40 knots. It might have been 30 knots. Ralph was higher than we’d be on a normal day but the action was such that it didn’t matter. We’d do a pass and I’d get two shots. One forward and one aft, before we’d climb and come back again or go looking for the next boat. We shot a few of the leaders, but I couldn’t help thinking the best was still to come. I worried that we’d be running The pilots were responsible for locating the yachts. Alice was seated near me, but there wasn’t much conversation. out of fuel just when it started to get wild. I said to Ralph through the headset, “Let’s go back and land and wait She had her job to do, making sure the cameras were loaded. I had my three 6x7 Pentax camera bodies with till one o’clock. This sea’s going to build.” 220 Fujifilm at 20 exposures per roll, so I had 60 frames per reload.

So, Ralph put in a waypoint where those leaders were - 38 degrees south, 150 degrees east - off Mallacoota on the furthest tip of Victoria. We knew that if we flew back to that waypoint at 1pm there’d be a batch of boats there, about to hit the south-westerly swells rolling through Bass Strait.

Patience is an important virtue in yachting photography and one of the most difficult for me to master. You need to wait for wind and light. We probably had snacks and tried to kill time at Merimbula, where the weather was quite pleasant. But I was too keen to get going.

“Let’s go,” I said, an hour earlier than intended. So, we got back in the Aero Commander and cruised back to the waypoint at about 1000 feet. As we descended towards those GPS bearings, we came down quite close to a yacht. The boats were exactly where we thought they’d be. But it wasn’t blowing 40 knots. Judging by the sea state, I reckoned it was blowing 70. Streamers whipped across the water, the tops of waves were toppled and blasted, the saltwater blown into the air so that it was often hard to tell where the water finished and the sky began.

50 51 AFR MIDNIGHT RAMBLER 1998 SAYONARA 1998 Midnight Rambler, one of the smallest yachts in the race was only 35 feet long. Ed Psaltis, Bob Thomas and their crew continued racing through the storm, Sayonara, the race leader at 9am on December 27. The wind was building and Sayonara reached speeds of in what was an extraordinary achievement, to become the overall winners of the 98 race. Later skipper Ed Psaltis described the scream of the wind through the over 21 knots. After surviving the storm and taking line honours, owner Larry Ellison declared “I am not the rigging as deafening. “The spray was hitting the side of the boat like bullets.” She was one of only 44 yachts to finish out of a fleet of 115. This image became winner of the race but its first survivor.” one of my most published photographs.

52 53 BOBSLED 1998 BOBSLED 1998

We found Bobsled completely stalled. She had full starboard rudder and was being blown sideways, completely overpowered by storm-force winds. This photograph later won the 1999 Nikon Australian Press Photographer of the Year award for best sports photograph.

54 55 ASPECT COMPUTING 1998

Aspect at the height of the storm. When this wave hit, the boat became airborne as she came out the other side. Skipper David Pescud established the charity Sailors with disAbilities, to help people through sailing. SECRET MENS BUSINESS 1998 One member of his crew had no legs. When asked during a media interview in Hobart “How did you manage without any legs?” the sailor replied. “It was great. Having no legs lowered my centre of gravity!” This is what is described as feather white. Wind gusts were observed at 92 knots. This is cyclone territory.

56 57 After capturing this group of boats, I heard Ralph’s voice in my headset. “I’m sorry Richard. We’re going home; this is just too much.”

You can imagine my emotions. I’d waited 14 years for the ultimate storm and just when it arrived, it was being taken away from me.

I got it, though. There was no question of arguing Ralph’s decision. He was the pilot in command and I’d never dispute such a call. The weather was just too bad for us to continue. We climbed, banked to the east and headed back for land, still not visible over the horizon.

I was feeling flat. I shouldn’t have been. I knew I had got some great shots in less than an hour of work, but there I was, I had the best aeroplane, the best crew, the cameras loaded, I knew where the fleet was… and we couldn’t work. There were so many more brilliant scenes out there just waiting to be captured in the back of my Pentax. It was beyond frustrating. And given the forecast, we didn’t expect to be able to get back out there before dark.

And I suppose that’s when my mind turned to the fleet. With this wind we could see it was going to cause a lot of grief. The seas were already big, but if the wind continued, those relentless walls of water rolling out of the south-west were only going to grow. We landed and refuelled and I imagine we had a drink and something to eat. Ralph took a phone call on his mobile and when he finished, he came over to Alice and I. “That’s the end of the yachting photography for now,” he said. “We’ve been taken over as a search aircraft and we’re going back out there. There’s been a mayday. You and Alice are now observers.”

We jumped back in the Aero Commander and pointed the nose towards the location of the distressed yacht’s emergency beacon.

STAND ASIDE 1998

58 59 As our aircraft approached Stand Aside, an orange flare shot up into the sky. This was shot through Perspex from 1000 feet. Can you imagine how big that breaking wave was? We held station above her, waiting for the rescue helicopter to arrive. They’d lost a man overboard. Our hearts sank. It was getting dark. The day was being brought to a premature close by the When it did, I could hear the conversation in the helicopter about keeping a lookout behind them to avoid being swamped by thick, dark cloud. They’re never going to get him back. We were located at the edge of the storm and on our way back to a breaking sea. The helicopter, using a radar altimeter, measured one of the waves at 146 feet. Merimbula when rescue authorities asked us to relay new coordinates for the location of Kingurra. We held station to provide air cover until the Victorian police rescue helicopter arrived, swept to the scene by the enormous tail winds. They did sweeps The crew couldn’t be lifted off the boat and so had to get into a life raft which they could be winched from. I watched them with a searchlight and miraculously found the guy in the water. inflate a raft which broke loose, cartwheeled away and appeared to disappear into the sky. Fortunately, they had another which they were able to get into and be winched to safety. I took no photos over Kingurra. My priority was not photography, it was being an extra pair of eyes. The chopper pulled the sailor, John Campbell, out of the water just 40 minutes after he’d gone in. We were elated. How good is this? A bloke gets This image was published as a double-page spread in both Life Magazine and Paris Match. It was a finalist in the Alfred Eisenstaedt lost in a storm - nearly dark - and a chopper can come out over the horizon and they’re that good they can retrieve him and Awards for Magazine Photography in New York, submitted by Life magazine. That was the last picture I took that day. save his life.

When we arrived over Stand Aside, Ralph ascertained over the radio that the boat was sinking and they wanted to be taken We were flying back to Merimbula when the radio crackled back to life. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Sword of Orion. off. He radioed this back to the search and rescue headquarters, AusSAR, in Canberra and they scrambled three helicopters We have lost a man overboard.” The voice was that of another friend, Rob Kothe, who I knew from Hamilton Island race week. – two from near Melbourne and one from Canberra. He’d set up my first website. He gave his position.

The Stand Aside distress call was like the first drop of rain in a summer storm. Soon, Ralph and the pilot of the ABC helicopter I remember Ralph saying to us, “They can’t get him. He’s too far offshore. They can’t get out there.” It was the first awareness filming below us, Garry Ticehurst, were relaying one distress call after another back to Canberra. Their voices filled our we had that the storm had turned fatal. In all, six sailors would die that day, including three from the Winston Churchill, headsets with the terrible reality of what was happening below. Our pilots, who were both very experienced in rescue work, who were at that moment clinging to a life raft. Fifty-five sailors would be rescued in an operation that continued well into the were talking to people and taking their positions. Astonishingly, the Helimed1 chopper, pushed by 80 knot tailwinds, made it next day. It was a sad, sobering experience. To have witnessed what we had, to have listened to so much of the distress over to the scene from Traralgon, just east of Melbourne, in 59 minutes, arriving at 4.55pm. the radio, the live account of what the sailors were going through, I rarely talk about it and words couldn’t describe it anyway. I had been chasing storms for years, but I was never looking for a storm like this. At 5:15pm, as we held station over Stand Aside and as the crew got into the life raft three and four at a time to be winched up into the chopper, my headset cackled to life. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill, When I arrived home the following night, my wife Sue was happy to see us safe. “I’m glad Alice wasn’t with you,” she said. Winston Churchill.” “Yes she was. She was doing my film changes.” The ABC pilot answered and got Winston Churchill’s position, “20 miles south-east of Twofold Bay”, and asked what was the nature of the mayday. “You didn’t take Alice out in that storm.”

“We are getting life rafts on deck, ABC chopper,” the voice said, growing in urgency. “We are holed. We are taking water “Well, um, yes.” rapidly. We can’t get the motor started to start the pumps.” Of course, if I’d known how bad the conditions were going to be I would’ve told Alice I preferred she stayed on the ground. Ticehurst relayed the message to Canberra, then tried to contact Winston Churchill again for more information but there was no response. I can’t put into words how we felt up there knowing we couldn’t get to them and there was nothing we could do.

There were so many events unfolding the authorities couldn’t get to them all. My pilots were asking the stricken yachts to switch off their emergency transponders once they’d been identified to reduce the clutter in information coming in so the rescue aircraft could isolate where they needed to be.

After the crew had been successfully lifted off Stand Aside, another Mayday call came through from the yacht Kingurra. I knew their skipper well. Professor Peter Joubert AM, “the Prof”, had been a client for many years (quite a stickler for straight horizons). The year before I’d run into him at the Taste of Tasmania and we’d shared a bottle of pinot. We talked about the race and he’d said, “Richard, I’m too old for this. I’ve just had a tough race in the Hobart. I’m going to give it away. I’m over it.”

But here he was, 73-years-old and, as we’d later learn, carrying a broken rib, a punctured lung and a ruptured spleen, calling in a mayday after his 26-year-old boat had been rolled.

60 61 WILD THING 2000

Grant Wharington’s Wild Thing near . Being in the air by daylight enables me to capture the ILLBRUCK 2000 beautiful light that lasts for only a few minutes before sunrise. A stormy sky was an unlikely setting when suddenly the glow from a distant dawn was reflected off the water. High-speed ISO 800 film was used to During the race my day typically stars at 4am. I like to be in the air just before 5am. The light can be beautiful capture this moment. Photographers love fine-grain film because of the detail it captures. With high-speed and a colourful sunrise is a bonus. Illbruck is a Volvo 60 built for round-the-world racing. The Volvo 60s gave film, the trade-off is increased grain because of all that extra silver in the emulsion. But grain can be a creative a welcome boost to the Sydney Hobart fleet when the Volvo Ocean Race organisers made our race a part of bonus, particularly when it becomes a feature in a large print. their yachting programme.

62 63 DR WHO 2000

Stormy weather is the best, and when a photograph is crafted to include the elements, when it explains the sea state and features the dramatic Tasmanian sea cliffs (Cape Raoul in this case), it is the perfect setting to showcase a beautiful yacht. I love the morning glow reflected off the water before sunrise. It is not just about Roger Jackman’s wonderful Tasmanian yacht. It is about an exquisite unspoilt landscape, a seascape, and the yacht’s interaction with it.

64 65 RAGAMUFFIN 2002 (Previous page)

Ragamuffin approaching the Derwent estuary. Owner Syd Fischer, one of the icons of the race, retired in 2016 after competing in 47 Sydney Hobarts. His first was in 1962.

WILD OATS 2004

Photographed in Bass Strait and sailed by Tasmanian Howard Piggott. This is one of my few high-angle pictures. The reflection of the sails caught my attention and the red storm jib contrasted beautifully with the gunmetal colours in the water.

66 67 STREWTH 2004 MASERATI 2004 Strewth displayed a beautiful harmony with the sea under the strong breeze in Bass Strait. Many must wonder The Aero Commander enabled us to work in Bass Strait during a gale in 2004 - the 60th Sydney Hobart - why yachties want to spend days at sea. But, as I am sure they will attest, it is good for the soul to spend time producing some of my favourite shots. Here, Maserati is revelling in the rough conditions. on a vast, beautiful ocean.

68 69 I mentioned earlier that I had a mentor in the early 80s. He was an American motivational speaker named Gary Glenn. I paid his airfare from Melbourne, his expenses and $1000 a day to come down to Geeveston just to sit on the veranda and philosophise with me.

We were sitting there and I said to him, “My parents tell me that I’m impulsive, that I no sooner get an idea, then the next thing I’ve gone and done it.”

“No, Richard,” he said, “That’s not impulsive. That’s decisive.” He told me that I was driven by my enthusiasms. “And, whatever it takes to keep you enthusiastic is not an expense, but an investment in your future because if ever you lose your enthusiasm for photography, you’re kaput, you’re finished. Anything you need, it’s okay. You just go and do it.”

This was a life changing conversation. His fee, which was an enormous amount of money back then, was money very well spent.

My next “enthusiasm” was the transition into digital. By 2008, I was satisfied that the quality of digital was superior to film. The speed and resolution offered by the new technology could no longer be ignored, once I’d figured out how to process the digital files. Digital cameras allow me to shoot upwards of 1/2000th of a second whenever the light allows.

LOVE AND WAR 2004

Owned by the Kurts family, Love and War has won the Sydney Hobart three times - in 1974, 1978 and 2006. The stormy sky adds great contrast and drama to this image.

70 71 KONICA MINOLTA 2006

Late in the afternoon we were flying back to Cambridge after a long shoot out to sea off Tasmania’s east coast when we came across Konica running down the coast. I was taken with the beautiful light, the intensity and lightness of the salt-filled atmosphere and the soft grey hues.

72 73 BACARDI 2009

I have switched to digital capture. No more film. Faster shutters, image stabilisation and the availability of digital post-production have revolutionised the way we work. Bacardi has competed in 29 Sydney Hobarts, more than any other boat. Owner Martin Power told me that this red-and-white spinnaker has been in every one of those races. Must be built out of good stuff! Bacardi finished second overall to Love and War in 2006.

74 75 INVESTEC LOYAL 2010 QUETZALCOATL 2009 The super maxis are getting bigger! Sean Langman and Anthony Bell finished second across the line behind Late afternoon sunlight and mist-shrouded cliffs made me very happy when Quetzalcoatl sailed by with her Wild Oats XI. Investec Loyal had a celebrity crew and raised money for the Loyal Foundation. Since its bright colours. inception the Loyal Foundation has raised nearly $5 million for charities.

76 77 SPIRIT OF DOWNUNDER 2010

Tasmania’s west coast has a different atmosphere to the east coast because its remote coastline is exposed to WILD OATS XI 2011 the Roaring Forties which generate storms across the southern Indian Ocean. The Sydney Hobart record holder and seven-time line-honours winner, Wild Oats XI, photographed in Here Lawrence Ford’s Spirit of Downunder is rounding South West Cape one of the great capes of the Storm Bay finished second behind Investec Loyal in 2011. Owned by the Oatley family, she is updated southern hemisphere, in the Melbourne to Hobart West-Coaster race. regularly and is the most successful maxi to compete in the Sydney Hobart.

78 79 The next “impulse” for me was to go to a five-day, fine-art printing workshop held by artist and educator Les Walkling in about 2010.

I liked it so much I did it twice. Then I got him down to where we now live to set up a workflow for me to print fine-art yachting images here in my own studio.

My work has gone more towards producing art. I’d like to think my earlier work was artistic, but it was about action. Now that we have 50-megapixel cameras, we can capture so much more. I work the file. I want to highlight detail in all the spray and the waves, and the interaction between the boat and the sea that tells the story of how fast it’s going. The mood.

And now I’ve got the equipment that I can turn those computer files into museum-quality archival prints that will last for generations. I’m using the best gear, the best materials. My goal is just to produce the most beautiful images that I can.

ICHI BAN 2011

Matt Allen’s 70-footer heading for the Derwent. Matt has competed in 27 Sydney Hobart Races and is current president of Yachting Australia.

Matt Allen is a past World Champion in the 11 Metre Class, four times winner of the Kings Cup and was second in the Farr 40 World Championships in 2006. Matt was Chairman of the Volvo Ocean Race Australian Challenge in 2005/06, and Commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia from 2007 to 2010.

80 81 VARUNA 2013

Yacht design has changed. Sails and hulls have changed too, from white to black. New digital cameras have changed too enabling me to shoot at first light using higher ISO speeds. The result is dramatic in this case, and the red storm jib makes it work pictorially. I just love getting out there and concentrating all my life’s experience and preparation and nailing that shot. I live for it. Now, I come home and open a 50-megapixel raw file on my computer and I’m amazed at the quality I can craft from that image. What most people don’t realise, is making the print to the quality I produce requires as much skill as getting the image in the first BRINDABELLA 2013 place. I’m passionate about printing my fine art images. As Ansell Adams said, producing the image is like the musical score, but making the print is the performance. I take this very seriously and the other thing most One of the most famous maxis in Australia, Brindabella won line honours for then owner George Snow in people don’t realise, is that I hand craft every image from my studio on Bruny Island. Varuna is a German 1997, and broke the race record for a conventionally-ballasted boat in 1999. Brindabella is still one of the yacht. The international profile of the Sydney Hobart as one of the world’s great ocean races is attracting fastest boats in the fleet. competitors from around the world. In fact, a German Boat, Raptor, won the Sydney Hobart in 1994.

82 83 KERUMBA 2013 PRIMITIVE COOL 2013 An exhilarating ride for Tam Faragher and his crew across Storm Bay during the 40-knot south-wester. John Newbold purchased Primitive Cool in 2013. She previously won the Hobart as Secret Mens Business Kerumba is a high-performance cruiser/racer, launched in July 2012. She has been described as a Beneteau in 2010. on steroids.

84 85 ST JUDE 2013 CELESTIAL 2013 We found St Jude in Storm Bay punching into a strong south-wester. I love this image because of the way the water is creaming off the hull. The fine salt spray tells a story about the action, which is maximised by the A higher angle has highlighted the pictorial quality of the silver sea. Celestial, photographed here after she strong foreground. had rounded Tasman Island, finished third overall in 2013.

86 87 PMA YEAH BABY 2014

When there is not much breeze, I go after images that capture the mood and atmosphere of the sea. Here, just after sunrise, I found PMA Yeah Baby west of Tasman Island. My goal is to make beautiful fine art archival prints. Back in my office on Bruny Island I find a black point and a white point in the image, adjust contrast, then crop the photograph. After that, I highlight the crew and work the highlights and shadows in the wake, then check the detail in the bow wave and spray. The edges are subtly darkened to contain the viewers’ eye. Saturation of the colour is enhanced, local contrast is adjusted, then finally, local sharpening of the hull and sails gives the finishing touch. The result is a print which will last for generations.

Compare this with a digital file stored on a phone, disk or hard drive. They say, ‘if it’s not backed up in at least BACARDI 2014 three places, it doesn’t exist’. Digital images can be lost when the phone is updated, the disk is scratched, or the disk reader becomes obsolete. Hard drives can fail. None of these options come close to the archival Late evening off Maria Island. There is a storm brewing. Hobart airport was closed for more than an hour qualities of a beautifully crafted fine-art print of museum quality that will last a lifetime and beyond. because of 50-knot winds across the runway.

88 89 I was so comfortable working from the Cessna, I never thought to change the way I worked, but on December 29, 2014 everything changed when another Cessna crashed near Tasman Island during the race. This tragedy was the catalyst for my transition to helicopters.

I had previously done a bit of commercial work from helicopters and I loved using them, but I wasn’t sure they’d work for the yacht race. You had to book them by the hour and when I asked about using one for the 2015 race, they asked, “When would you like to go and how long will you need it for?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It depends how hard it blows. I need it to be available for the duration of the race.”

The Manager at Rotorlift, Susan Stanley, was really supportive. She guaranteed that I would have a chopper at my exclusive disposal for the entire time I needed it.

Once I got into it, I realised I should have done it years ago. The thing about an aeroplane is that it leaves Cambridge, flies around the circuit, then flies back to Cambridge. I’d pay for a lot of ferry time. You find a good shot by serendipity. You can plan to go to Tasman Island when there’s a boat or two coming around, but if there’s another one up the coast a little bit, then you have to photograph it where it is. You can’t stop, and you can’t pick the location. You’ve just got to keep flying.

With a helicopter, we go down to the Tasman Peninsula for the day. When there’s no boat to shoot, we land in a paddock at “Fulham” in Dunalley, the farm where my daughter Alice and her husband Tom live. We place fuel there. Alice makes us a cup of tea and maybe we’ll have a nap while we wait for the next batch of boats. We won’t come back till the evening.

So, the helicopter has turned out to be very workable and there was an improvement in picture quality because we fly much slower. I took a shot one evening in the Derwent in 2016, handheld, at one-thirtieth of a second.

The helicopter is now booked indefinitely. I’ve got a new sticky sign for it and we give the yachties plenty of time to read it.

PRETTY FLY III 2014

I love the backlight from the golden sunrise. Pretty Fly III was the IRC Division O winner in 2014. I got her in front of the Iron Pot, the second oldest operating lighthouse in Australia and the race’s last corner at the mouth of the Derwent estuary before the finish at Castray Esplanade.

90 91 COMANCHE 2015 BALANCE 2016

The latest in state-of-the-art 100 footers, Comanche was built to break records for Netscape founder A wet foggy Sydney Hobart. Some boats didn’t even see the Tasmanian coast. Shooting in the rain is always Jim Clark and his wife, Kristy Hinze. Imagine the technology that keeps that long skinny mast upright. difficult from an aircraft because of water droplets on the lens. But we managed and found Balance near Comanche won line honours in 2015 having also taken line honours in that year’s Fastnet race. She also holds Tasman Island. Balance, sailed by celebrity finance guru Paul Clitheroe, had been outright winner in 2015, the 24-hour sailing record for monohulls. but was thwarted by the wind gods in this race.

92 93 WILD OATS XI 2017

Although Australia’s most successful maxi, Wild Oats XI, was first across the finishing line at Castray Esplanade, she was stripped of her line honours win following a protest just minutes after the start on Boxing Day.

94 95 WIZARD 2017

Wizard, Comanche and Wild Oats XI were fighting it out for the lead north of Maria Island when I found them. I decided on close, tight compositions. Walls of water were sweeping the deck when I photographed the peak of the action.

96 97 BEAU GESTE 2017

We found Beau Geste to the north-east of Tasman Island.

It was the end of the day and my pilot Bryn Watson advised that we would have to stop shooting and return to Hobart if we were to get back by last light. My request was to keep shooting because the light was so good and the wind was strong. It was a higher priority for me to continue to capture the light, the mood and the action. After all, photography was the purpose of the exercise. We kept shooting until the last light began to fade.

The camera used was a Canon 5Dsr with a Canon 70mm to 200mm zoom lens at 70mm. ISO was 6400. Exposure was f 2.8 at 1/1200th of a second.

This image would not have been possible a few years ago because it would have been beyond the capabilities of the available technology. It would not have been practical from a fixed wing aircraft because of the need to return to base before last light. The Jet Ranger helicopter provided a stable platform and enabled the operational flexibility to find a landing ground on Tasman peninsula. We landed in a paddock with our lights on, just two minutes before last light. My pilot, Bryn Watson, shares the can-do attitude and thrill of the chase of my long-time fixed-wing pilots. He does whatever he can to help me get my pictures.

Later, the satisfaction derived from making the fine art print brings to fruition the creative process and what a way to relive a great moment in Sydney Hobart history than to present a photographic print.

98 99 MALUKA OF KERMANDIE 2017

Sean Langman’s beautifully restored Maluka is beating into a sloppy south-westerly off Cape Raoul. This is one tough little Sydney Hobart veteran. Sean later remarked “the little girl had a bit on that morning.”

100 101 The seascape is always changing. I’ve noticed there are far fewer mutton birds. There used to be huge rafts of mutton birds in Storm Bay, now there are hardly any. We used to share the sky with shy albatross too, but we hardly ever see one now. I don’t know where they have all gone, but I’ve really noticed the difference. The yachts are getting bigger. Kialoa III was a giant of her day, but she was only 23 metres long. The first 30-metre yacht to take line honours was in 2003. Since 2005, every single line-honours winner has been 30 metres. And they’ve all got those black sails now. I’m shooting digital from a helicopter. What hasn’t changed, is that I just love it all. I can’t wait to get that file on the screen and work it until I’ve got it just the way I want it. I love making a beautiful print and sending it off to clients who appreciate what I’m doing.

I still want to be out at the Iron Pot before dawn, or down at Tasman Island on dusk when the first thing you see is a yacht’s nav lights. It’s not a daylight race. I want to be there in that pre-dawn glow, and I want to capture all that mood against the dramatic Tasmanian landscape. I want the sun going down behind the Raoul. I want people to be able to feel what it was like to be out there when they look at one of my pictures. To be a part of the majesty. I want to show it all.

I’ve done 46 Hobarts now and with the helicopter, I reckon I can manage another ten to 15. I only need to go another four to get to 50. Why wouldn’t I want to keep going? People say, “Aren’t you going to retire?” And I say, “I’ve been retired most of my life because I’m doing what I love.”

ANGER MANAGEMENT 2018

Tasman Passage is a favourite location for me. Receding cliffs, salt filled sky enhanced by late afternoon backlight. I waited until Anger Management sailed into this magic spot.

102 103 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Richard Bennett acknowledges the cooperation and assistance of the following people and organisations:

My wife Sue for always supporting our projects and showcasing our work on the dock for 46 years.

Lucy Bennett, Alice Gray and Claire Bennett for creative input.

Mark Whittaker for the text, based on interviews with the author.

John Penney for the design and layout.

Ralph Schwertner and Teresa Derrick for proof reading.

Geoff Hunt and Libby Jeffrey from Momento Pro for producing the book.

Ian Van Der Wolde for technical assistance.

Nicole Shrimpton for her encouragement and support.

Mark Payet from C.R. Kennedy and Company and Ilford, who supported my 2017 exhibition that included most of the images featured in this book.

The Maritime Museum of Tasmania which featured my “Across Five Decades” exhibition in 2017.

Phil and Anne Boustead from Oyster Cove Marina for their ongoing support.

Bob Ross for decades of support.

Tasair, Par Avion and Rotorlift, whose talented pilots have helped me to capture 46 years of yacht races.

The pilots: Ralph Schwertner, Nick Tanner, John Townley, Spencer Flint, Rex Godfrey, David Ervin, John Pugh, Rodd Smith, Bryn Watson and Bruce White.

Sandy and Penny Gray, and Tom and Alice Gray for use of their property ‘Fulham’ for helicopter refuelling.

The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia and The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania for hosting the Sydney Hobart.

At Constitution Dock: Lucy Bennett, Cam and Sophie Baxter, Kristy Dowsing, Gundars Simsons, Brian Bennett, TasPorts, Vanessa Shield.

Mures for providing a location for my display at Constitution Dock.

The Henry Jones Art Hotel for their incredible hospitality and having my car ready to go at 4am every morning.

For processing: Full Gamut, Perfect Prints, Kingston Camera Centre, Photoforce.

Ian Wallace, for managing my website and always being available to put my images online over the Published by Richard Bennett New Year period. www.richardbennett.com.au Copyright 2019. All rights reserved. www.richardbennett.com.au