Blake connection: romance of sail

ANTHONY JOHNSON

WASHING MACHINE: The start of this year's Sydney to Hobart race with New Zealand's Alfa Romeo leading out of Sydney Heads.

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If Sir Peter Blake were still with us, he would surely be delighted at the serendipity of the blossoming romance between his daughter, Sarah-Jane, and Lion New Zealand's skipper Alistair Moore.

Moore had wanted to sail in a Sydney-Hobart yacht race since he watched, entranced, as Blake won it in 1980. He learnt to sail under Blake, whom he describes as "my hero, my absolute hero", and this year he helped establish the Lion Maritime Development Charitable Trust in Blake's memory to teach sailing to under-privileged teams.

To publicise their work and to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Blake's 1984 triumph in the race, Moore also put together a crew to sail Blake's boat from that race in this year's 65th staging of one of sailing's toughest contests.

In a neat touch, he also recruited the children of three 1984 crew members – Blake, Conrad Gundry (son of Simon) and Sam Cray (son of Godfrey) – to be among the 21-strong crew which began the race in Sydney yesterday afternoon.

Moore and Blake's relationship grew into something more during a preparatory race to New Caledonia where 40ft seas and 75-knot winds twice overturned Lion New Zealand.

"Romance has blossomed," said Moore sheepishly, on the phone from Sydney as he made his final preparations yesterday morning. "It happened after our time on the Noumea race. We're very, very happy and comfortable there. It's all early days at this stage, but we're happy and excited and it's something quite lovely."

Blake herself has described it as "quite strange but good. I've known him since I was 16 and he worked for my father since he was 16 or 17".

An artist who has lived most of her life in London, Blake was backpacking around Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand and India when a TV production company offered to fly her home to New Zealand earlier this year to give a video interview about her father's life for a new exhibition at Auckland's Maritime Museum.

She found herself agreeing to crew the Noumea race, and then to start in Sydney to Hobart.

She said that re-immersing herself in the sailing world had helped her grieve for her father, who was killed eight years ago by Amazonian pirates while on a research trip (Moore's father was in that crew, Moore himself was conducting research for Peter Blake at the time elsewhere in the Amazon basin).

Blake told the New York Times last week: "I definitely haven't cried properly for a while, and I've started crying more, which I think is a good thing. Since my dad died, I've really been blocking everything out. It's been very cathartic, but sometimes it gets a bit too much, and sometimes I get fed up talking about boats."

Despite Moore's lifelong passion for the race, this is his first attempt at it (he was offered a place in 1998 but couldn't get leave from his job to compete).

"This boat was the nursery school for New Zealand offshore yachting; so many talented guys cut their teeth on this boat," he said. "I learnt so much from Peter, and to have his boat here on the start line is huge.

"We're not one of those teams with an unlimited budget – we've been counting the pennies and working out how best to make the boat safe and strong and efficient, but having this legacy in front of us does make you want to do everyone back home proud and respect the history of the boat."

Although Lion New Zealand won't compete for line honours with the faster maxis such as four-time winner Wild Oats XI, Moore said the forecast conditions of 40-knot winds would suit his boat and make it competitive within its class.

But he said he'd be even happier with more rugged conditions.

"We're on the safest and strongest boat in the fleet and it is competitive in a hurricane," he said of the boat, which has been modernised but is essentially unchanged from the craft in which Blake also entered the 1985/86 Round the World race, even down to the engine, which is similar to the one from a double-decker bus.

"We've got very good sailors, very experienced, and I am confident we will put up a good show, especially with the forecast," said Moore.

His crew have managed three full weekend sails out of Auckland, which has helped those such as Blake who haven't had much race-sailing experience.

"They are learning all the time: they've done a lot of ocean passages, but not so much the competitive side of things," said Moore.

"Even feeding everyone becomes a hefty challenge when you're bouncing around on the waves, but our preparation has been very good, and that's something Peter Blake taught me early on: if you don't perform well, then look at your preparation."

That forethought extended to Moore overseeing his crew's final night on land. "I made sure no one had any rum last night."

- © Fairfax NZ News