Katwinchar history: Billy Barry Cotter to sail 115-year-old boat in Sydney to Hobart race

Renowned Gold Coast boat builder Bill Barry-Cotter has set sail for Sydney to take part in the world’s most famous yacht race. But it’s just the latest chapter in the extraordinary history of his 115-year-old boat.

RENOWNED boat builder Bill Barry-Cotter is under sail and heading south, where the next chapter in the history of his 115-year-old ketch and the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race awaits.

Barry-Cotter’s 9.4m Katwinchar has been a labour of love these past two years since his 14-year quest to find the boat – owned from 1960-65 by his father Frank – paid off when a friend spotted a Gumtree advertisement revealing its derelict remains were lying in a yard in Hexham, Newcastle, and being given away.

Barry-Cotter moved quickly, salvaging the once proud craft and bringing it north to his service yard at Hope Island, where he and a team of Maritimo boat builders worked their magic.

The alternative was unthinkable. To rot away would have been a terrible ending for a boat designed and built in London in 1904 by Ricardo Gilbey Watney, owner of the famous Watney Brewery. Watney named the boat after his three children, Katherine, Winifred and Charles.

Katwinchar has had an incredible history since it was built in 1904. Picture: Jerad Williams

It was bought in 1946 by professional fisherman Eddie Mossop, who in the post-war climate convinced his wife Dorothy that they should emigrate to Tasmania. Two mates were also keen to go – fellow fisho Dennis Tanner and a former RAF and BOAC (later British Airways) officer, Bill Bartlett.

The men set sail in Katwinchar in 1951, heading on a 14,000 mile (22,530km) voyage in the then 47-year-old ketch that took them across the Atlantic to Panama, where it was found that Katwinchar was the smallest vessel to have passed through the canal.

The plan was to arrive in Sydney in time for the Sydney to Hobart race, which would complete their journey to Tasmania. They made it in 196 days – with five days to spare before the Boxing Day start to the race and, according to Gold Coast-based author, journalist, yachtie and master of maritime narrative Rob Mundle, very little else.

They were down to a handful of cans of food and an unusual bid for a record – despite there being two professional fishermen on board, the lures they dragged the entire way did not catch a single fish.

Katwinchar with Eddie Mossop and crew in the cockpit sets off at the start of the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race in 1951.

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Mundle has made the Katwinchar story the final chapter in his 18th book, which is called The Sydney Hobart Race: History of a Sporting Icon. He was commissioned to write it by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia and publisher HarperCollins to mark the 75th anniversary this year of the race.

Mossop sold the boat to Bill Barry-Cotter’s father, Frank, in 1960. He sailed it around Sydney Harbour and Pittwater for five years until he in turn sold it in 1965.

Those five years had lit a spark in the young Barry-Cotter, who had become an apprentice boat builder and recognised something very special in Katwinchar.

“It was built in 1904. They were way ahead of their time, at least 50 years ahead,’’ he said this week.

“It was very different and very fast for its time. The sails were brand new in 1950. By the time Dad bought it, it had 10-year-old cotton sails and was as fast as anything around at the time.’’

Gold Coast boat builder Bill Barry-Cotterwith Black Hops Brewing co-founders, Dan Norris, Michael McGovern and Eddie Oldfield aboard Katwinchar. Picture: Jerad Williams.

He agreed the restoration had cost a packet.

“But it was worth the venture,’’ he said, adding the family would hang on to it for good now.

Restoration involved replacing the rotten English oak that had been used in the stem, keel and sternpost. The entire deck and cabin were replaced and aluminium masts added.

But all the planking on the hull, which is Canadian cedar, is original.

“I was told as a kid it was made out of pitch pine but as soon as we went to restore it I said ‘bingo, Canadian cedar!’ It’ll last forever,’’ he said.

Black Hops Brewery has come on board, sponsoring sails for the latest venture.

Barry-Cotter and crew set sail for Sydney on Friday. The plan is to iron out any problems before the famous Boxing Day race.

Next Friday the ketch will sail again in the Cabbage Tree Island bluewater race from Point Piper back up the coast to the island near Port Stephens and then return to Rushcutters Bay in Sydney Harbour.

Come Boxing Day, it will be on in earnest.

But he said the Sydney to Hobart race was “an absolute lottery’’.

Below deck on Bill Barry-Cotter’s remarkable yacht Katwinchar. Picture: Jerad Williams

Mundle says that with the right conditions, Katwinchar is a good chance for handicap honours. Barry-Cotter is reserved but will not rule the possibility out.

“If it’s blowing from the north, rough or calm, it’s a very fast race (suiting the maxis),’’ he said.

“What the boat needs weather-wise is from the south, so it’s windward most of the time.

“The reason for racing is trying to win.’’

Crew includes Michael Spies, a veteran of 42 races to the Apple Isle with a record that includes line honours in 1999 and winning overall in 2003, and Bill and his brother Kendal as skippers.

Barry-Cotter laughs off his own role as “movable ballast’’.

Mundle said he wanted to do more with the book than simply log a chronological list of dates and names.

“There are so many people, so many boats and so many great stories involved,’’ Mundle said.

So he seized on all the great stories to tell a tale in the vein of his successes to date, which include his international bestseller Fatal Storm, the inside story of the tragic 54th Sydney-Hobart race of 1998 in which six sailors perished.

“This year is the 75th anniversary of the race. I’ve reported on it for more than 50 years and as a consequence, have just finished writing the official history of the event – 110,000 words.’’ he said.

“The story (about Katwinchar) is strong enough for it to be the final chapter of this book.’’

It is due for release by the end of the month.