Sleepless? Stressed? It’s just like home: LawConnect’s Christian Beck gears up for another Sydney-Hobart
Sydney-Hobart winner LawConnect’s Christian Beck is gearing up for another fierce battle with rival Comanche while juggling the raising of two young children and a demanding job.
Sleepless nights, long-slog days, stressful situations and there’s bound to be vomiting. Yet Christian Beck, skipper and owner of last year’s Sydney-Hobart winner LawConnect, reckons the 628 nautical mile journey is still more relaxing than being at home with a newborn.
A father of a one-year-old and a new baby and the executive chairman of ATI Global, Beck is gearing up for another fierce battle with rival Comanche.
Last year, LawConnect narrowly took out line honours, beating Comanche by 51 seconds to the finish line at Constitution Dock in Hobart.
Beck’s preparation last year of “nappies and impromptu wake-ups” has continued this year with the birth of his second child.
“Last year, my wife had a baby just before Hobart in November; that really destroyed my practice. But she had another baby this year in October, so it’s been quite stressful in the home life,” he said.
“It’ll probably be more relaxing on the water. I’ll probably sleep better on that boat than I will at home.”
Beck said the race’s “unique” position provided some measure of balance from a busy work life as executive chairman of a large company. “It’s like a holiday for me really because I work in an office all year so I don’t really do all that much on the boat and it’s just a fun event to be in,” he said.
“When I grew up in Australia, the three events I always watched were the Sydney-Hobart, the Melbourne Cup and the Bathurst car race. I just love being part of it, I love the iconic start, I love being at the pub at the end.”
Ahead of last year’s nailbiting finish, Beck didn’t dare hope for victory until the dying minutes of the race. “Obviously it was great. I mean I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think that would happen until minutes before. It was really, really hard to stay with [Comanche] and to get them right at the end was amazing,” he said.
It is rivalries like that between LawConnect and Comanche that make the Sydney-Hobart the spectacle that it is.
“[The rivalry] is important because that’s what the race is all about … I think this year is shaping up to be a big rivalry between the two of us,” Beck said.
“Weather conditions are quite interesting and probably helpful to us because what we don’t really want is easy conditions and this is certainly not looking like an easy race so we’re happy about that.”
It’s a tradition of the Sydney-Hobart for race finishers to attend the Custom House hotel in Hobart and it’s one Beck said stood alone as a gathering of sailing expertise.
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