Wendy learnt to sail from a kids’ book. Now she’s taking on a notorious stretch of water for the 17th time

Wendy Tuck is nothing if not resilient – even in the face of a storm. The Sydney to Hobart race veteran was skippering the 70-foot yacht Da Nang-Viet Nam in the 2015-16 Clipper Round the World when a rogue wave struck. The yacht was crossing the North Pacific in huge seas with winds blowing at more than 50 knots for 24 hours.

They were about 1600 kilometres from Juan de Fuca strait in Canada, and Tuck hadn’t slept for 24 hours. As the wind started to abate, her crew told her to get some sleep. She went below as the wave knocked the boat flat.

“I remember being airborne, hitting my head and ending up in the navigation seat, trapped in my sleeping bag, bleeding and with a cracked rib,” she said.

She had to quickly bandage herself to get up on deck to help a crew member pinned underneath the yacht’s steering column. “We still had 1000 miles to go. There’s no one out there who can help you.”

In 2017-2018, she signed on to the race again. She was the skipper of the 70-foot Sanya Serenity Coast, sailing more than 40,000 nautical miles and six oceans. She became the first female skipper to win the event.

Where better to hear this nautical narrative than at the bistro of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia at Rushcutters Bay as preparations get under way for this year’s Sydney to Hobart? Behind us is a backdrop of boats of all shapes and sizes, from the super maxis to the smallest boat in the race, Kismet (9.3 metres: 30 feet), a veteran launched in 1955.

Wendy Tuck: “It’s really friendly until we’re on the water. Then we are racing”. Credit: Rhett Wyman

Tuck is a vegetarian. “Nothing with a face, an arse or relatives,” she says and orders the veg ravioli. For something from the ocean, my choice is the seafood linguine. We drink pinot grigio and shiraz.

Already, with 15 days to go, there is a feeling of purpose in the sea air, though the atmosphere is not “manic” as it is on Boxing Day.

Months of work go into preparing a sailing boat for the ocean challenge. Sail trimming, fine-tuning of standing rigging (the steel wires that hold up the masts), balance of ballast ... on and on it goes.

It’s unfortunate, then, just eight weeks before the flotilla of some 103 boats are expected to cross the start line in Sydney Harbour, that Tuck realised her vessel, Inty, wasn’t considered seaworthy. It failed its category 1 safety certificate (a requirement for the race), and modifications were required that the owner wasn’t comfortable with.

The Cruising Yacht Club bistro’s seafood linguine.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Tuck and co-skipper Meg Niblett are one of just three all-female crews out of 22 boats in the double-handed category, in which there are just two sailors aboard the vessel. It isn’t first past the post as with super yachts such as Comanche, LawConnect and Wild Oats, the winners being decided by a complex system of handicaps.

So what to do with no boat to sail? Tuck’s characteristic resilience shone through again. She posted on the CYCA’s WhatsApp two-handed group saying, “Hey, we need a boat”. “And that’s how we found Gizmo [a Jeanneau Sun Fast 3600, 11.25 metres/36 feet], which has been lent to us.”

Gizmo has done three previous Sydney to Hobarts. Tuck has done 16. “We have still got a few little jobs to do but nothing huge,” she says. “Because Meg and I haven’t sailed together before, we have to do a 150-mile qualifier over 24 hours. We are doing that this weekend.”

How many hours has she logged in Gizmo? She laughs. “Sailing the boat? Probably about 10 or 12. So nothing. It’s a very solid, seaworthy boat. Some boats are designed to go really fast on one point of sail [direction in relation to the wind]. This boat is a good all-rounder, and I think that average is going to play to our advantage. We want average speeds in average conditions.

“There’s one nice thing about things with the other two-handers – it is really, really friendly – until we are on the water. Then we are racing.

Tuck and her co-skipper Meg Niblett are from different generations, “but we get on really well”.Credit: Louise Kennerley

“It isn’t a big deal about being female – it’s about being a sailor in the Sydney to Hobart two-handed.

“The big thing about two-handers is you have to trust your sailing partner. There’s a big age gap between us. Meg’s 25, and I’m nearly 60, but we get on really well. I examined her for her yacht master exams. If you are asleep and your co-skipper makes a decision, you have to trust that.

“I’m looking at the weather and looking for patterns. Maybe a front has come in much earlier [than expected] – maybe that’s a pattern that will be repeated, so I need to be aware of that. We don’t have weather radar, but we have software that tells us whether we should go offshore or stay in close. You can follow it – or you can ignore it.

“It doesn’t consider local anomalies, headlands and sea breezes and things like that. Around Jervis Bay, there is always weird stuff happening.”

She predicts the passage to Hobart will take a minimum of four nights. By the time they get there, they will both be exhausted.

Is age a handicap? “I have just got to be more aware of my body. Sometimes, you think you can still do what you did when you were 20. You have just got to be more careful. I have got dodgy knees, dodgy shoulders, all thanks to sailing. You have got to be mentally fit. I have never had a problem with that.”

The CYCA’s vegetarian ravioli.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Tuck was a keen surfer from an early age and grew up in land-locked Mount Druitt – not known for surfing or sailing, she says. She went backpacking and married young. They went to Spain, bought a little boat and lived on it. They bought a kids’ book on learning how to sail. “We pulled the sails up, and the boat started to move. We thought, holy shit, it works.”

Of the challenges of being on a two-hander, she adds: “When it’s cold in the middle of the night, and I think I am here for another three hours because I have got to let my sailing partner sleep, you do talk to yourself a bit. But to be on deck by yourself at night, even if it is rough, I just think this is nature, this is the way it is.

“Some people put so much emphasis on the diet, but for four or five days, I can survive on a fairly shit diet. We will go with dehydrated stuff; we only have a one-burner stove. I will eat lots of chocolate and chips – Kettle chips, high fat and high salt – but we still lose weight because we are so active. We will have a couple of good meals, things you just add hot water to. You just want something that gives you a quick burst. I have chocolate-coated coffee beans – that’s what gets me through. I love them.”

Food at the bistro is less complicated. Tuck describes the ravioli sauce as “very good”. The linguine is also adequate bistro fodder but with mussels that are far from pink or plump. It’s probably not a dish you would want to prepare within the confines of a penduluming galley at sea. A second glass of wine and there is no need for chocolate or chips.

Apart from snacks, there will be something else aboard to keep up morale – a soft toy, Shaun the Sheep – now renamed Shauna – to accord with the all-female crew. It gets more complicated. “I got him in China when I was judging a Miss World contest in 2018,” she explains.

“When I did my Clipper Round the World Race, my boat was sponsored by Sanya [the southernmost city on China’s Hainan Island]. They were about to hold Miss World there, and after my 2018 race win, we had a big crew party and all the representatives from Sanya were there. The mayor came and invited me to be a judge”.

Wendy Tuck on Gizmo at the CYCA. Credit: Rhett Wyman

“The winner was Miss Mexico. She came out in national costume, wearing cowboy boots and cracking a whip, so I chose her. There were architects, doctors, nurses – they were educated people. There were still some with fake teeth and fake boobs, but it has changed a lot. It was a great experience.”

After 16 Sydney–Hobart races, will the 2024 race be the maritime equivalent of a walk in the park? “I don’t think you ever become blasé about doing the Sydney Hobart,” she says. “You are still out there, especially on a smaller boat. We cross the Bass Strait, which is one of the most notorious pieces of water in the world.

“I’d be scared of sharks if I fell off. It’s a lot harder to retrieve someone if there’s only one person back on the boat. It’s the things you don’t have any control over – like electrical storms. There’s not much you can do to avoid being struck by lightning. It can short out everything on your boat.”

The early marriage didn’t last. Is she with a partner now? “No, I’m single. Put that in there. Single, single, single. Sun-bleached blonde. Contender for old Miss World.”

Last year, Gizmo came 10th in the two-hander class skippered by two guys from Queensland. “That’s our goal – to beat that. We’ll give it all we’ve got.”

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