2013 Hobart Westcoaster. Welcome to Whistler

It is always a pleasure to have one of our Tasmanian colleagues make the trek across The Strait to join us for the Christmas races. This year skipper David Rees is bringing across his MD&B 36 Whistler across and they could well be a ‘smokey’.

Whistler was built in the 90’s in an apple shed in the Huon Valley by John Hyslop and launched in 1996, Hyslop himself prefers to stay on dry land. Rees has become the cornerstone of Whistler’s racing and has successfully campaigned this boat for the last 10 years. Apart from the usual racing on the Derwent, Rees is no stranger to the ocean having competed in several Sydney to Hobarts, the ORCV’s 2007 inaugural East Coast race and winning on AMS the Launceston to Hobart in 2009.

In fact the only race they haven’t done to date is the Westcoaster so this is the time. This design has been shown before to optimise on both the IRC and AMS handicaps and local knowledge never does any harm. Having said that only Rees has previously crewed in this West Coast race on the Tasmanian boat Quetzalcoatl, also as I remember a successful campaign.

The journey to Melbourne has been done in a couple of jumps with the boat now sitting in Launceston ready to cross on the weekend. Expected into Melbourne on Sunday or Monday they will be docking at Royals in readiness for the Boxing Day Dash.

If you see them around the pier make them welcome we would love to see more Tasmanian boats joining the Tassie Trio races.
Jennifer McGuigan