Sydney to Hobart timber minnow Kismet battling her way to Hobart in 2024 race in 2025

He’s raced the fastest and craziest yacht and now this skipper is on track to be one of the last Sydney to Hobart finishers with a mate he argues with about how loud he chews his breakfast.

Sean Langman’s two-hander Kismet in the Sydney to Hobart.

Veteran sailor Sean Langman has raced the craziest, fastest, oldest and slowest yachts in the Sydney to Hobart and now he’s on track to finish his 34th race on a boat with just one mate by his side and as one of the tail-lights of the ravaged 2024 fleet – in 2025.

The double-handed Kismet, a boat recovered full of water from a mooring, built in 1955 and which raced in 1957, will be one of the last finishers – if not the tail-light – in the torrid race in which two sailors died and almost a third of the fleet were forced out.

But Langman won’t care too much – the longer he is at as sea, generally the better.

“These days I don’t seek or desire to be involved in the arms race of sailing. It is just about going sailing and having fun,” said the Sydney boatbuilder and businessman sailing with old mate, Peter Inchbold.

“Financially I’m not a billionaire and you need to be incredible wealthy to race a mini maxi or super maxi.”

Sean Langman’s two-hander Kismet in the Sydney to Hobart.

Langman said he has a special attachment to the timbered yacht Kismet, a boat designed by one of the race founders Captain John Illingworth who won the 1945 race on Rani, and Harold Penrose.

“She was full of rot, she had sunk. I had known of the boat for a long time. A mate had it,” he said.

“I went over it and fell through the deck. I tried to gift it to an apprentice to restore and he said yes but then moved.

“We tried to find a home and then I said to Peter, how about doing a two handed thing on Kismet and here we are.”

The yacht was built in Tasmania and designed as a one-design offshore racing boat for the 1956 Olympics but failed to be selected as the Games equipment.

The yacht Blue Moon before the race.

Sean Langman. Pictures: Ashley Dart/CYCA

“After 33 races I needed a change,’’ said Langman

“It adds opportunity to allow more people to sail. There’s this What’s App two-handed group that goes off all day, that’s old fashioned camaraderie.

“You want to feel like you belong.’’

Big winds and seas at the start coupled with areas of light transitions, wind hols and upwind sailing have delayed the arrival of the Sydney to Hobart tailenders.

The yachts Blue Moon, Silver Fern, Salt Lines and Kismet on Tuesday afternoon still had plenty of miles to race before arriving at the finish line on the Derwent River.

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