Free Fatal Storm by Rob Mundle Page A

signs pinned to the front and back of his shirt. The scrawled red writing read “Crew available”. Sobey had just finished his final year of high school and had come to Sydney on the off chance that he might be able to snaffle a ride to Hobart. Like so many young sailors raised in a world of dinghy racing, Sobey regarded the Hobart as the ultimate event. But 1998 was not to be his year, and as the fleet set sail, Tom Sobey watched from the shore.
    As Steve Kulmar was leaving for the CYC on Boxing Day morning, he stopped by his daughter Pip’s room, gave her a kiss on the cheek and whispered goodbye. A muffled grunt from a head firmly buried in a pillow was the only response he received. Later, as Steve and the other family members drove towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a personal concern unrelated to the race or the weather conditions niggled him. He hated the fact that the yacht was at the crowded club on race day and much preferred it when the preparations were done elsewhere. He didn’t enjoy having to struggle with his bags through a crowd just to get to the yacht. But just like the weather conditions, this was something that was out of his control.
    Sailors, wannabes, socialites, media types and countless curious spectators had been gathering at the club since the early hours of the morning. For some, but not everyone, navigating through the throng had indeed become a tricky business. Paul Borg, from Mooloolaba in Queensland, confidently made his way along the dock with a white cane in one hand and a friendly arm to hang onto. He was heading for Aspect Computing – the yacht manned by the group competing under the banner “Sailors with DisAbilities”. Borg had lost his sight two years earlier yet was determined to continue sailing. Also in the Aspect Computing crew was 12-year-old Travis Foley, a dyslexic from Mudgee and the race’s youngest competitor.
    The smell of breakfast – bacon and eggs cooking on the club’s outdoor barbecue, toast and freshly brewed coffee – filled the air as sailors clad in their colourful T-shirts and shorts mingled with the punters wearing their best summer attire. In the small carpark at the side of the club, crewmembers waited anxiously for representatives from the Bureau of Meteorology to arrive with the official race forecast. Out on the street others were paying$10 and throwing their excess baggage, cruising sails for the trip home, inflatable dinghies and spare equipment into the back of the large truck that was heading to Hobart. Excess weight would slow a yacht down and only the bare essentials could be taken on board.
    George Snow, property developer and owner of Australia’s glamour maxi, Brindabella , was having his hand shaken and his back slapped as he struggled through the crowd to get to his 75-foot racer at the end of the marina.
    “Good luck, mate. Make sure you beat those Americans,” came a call from the crowd. It was a nice thought, but deep down Snow and his enthusiastic supporter both knew that the odds were against his “old girl” beating the triple world champion Sayonara. A few hundred metres to the north, at d’Albora Marinas, Sayonara ’s owner, the trim, fit and energetic Larry Ellison, had arrived and was attracting a fair amount of attention. But one of his crewmembers was stealing the show. Lachlan Murdoch, the 27-year-old CEO and Chairman of News Corporation in Australia, stood with his fiancée Sarah O’Hare. Needless to say, the photographers were having a field day.
    Sayonara was both an impressive piece of yacht building and a beautiful boat to look at. From its sleek white hull and aerodynamic carbon fibre mast through to the crew’s crisp white T-shirts – complete with the bold red and black Sayonara logo – it was arguably one of the finest yachts in the world and was wholly justified in being the odds-on favourite. Larry Ellison was a spare-no-expense campaigner and had assembled an experienced and highly accomplished crew. It