Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

It's not the America's Cup, but they take it just as seriously. ANNE BESTON joins the rum racers for their regular Thursday date on the waters of the Waitemata.
Harbour.

Bill Falconer's voice can rival a starter's gun, and he uses it to good effect as a couple of rum-race stragglers hurry down the pier.

Time is getting on. The race begins in less than an hour, and 20 or so deckhands and skippers must be divvied up between the boats.

The key man in all this is Bill Miller, rum race founder, veteran skipper and general commandant. He sits under a green khaki hat at the stern of one of the Stewart 34s, clutching a clipboard. There is no way he's coming ashore to talk to a reporter - he has better things to do.

But Chas Lindgreen does have time to talk because he's not skippering today, just crewing. But that does not mean he's indifferent to whether his boat wins - one of the defining characteristics of rum racers, apart from their ability to bellow down a pier, is their desire to win.

The prize today is what it always is, a bottle of rum, but for the rum racers it could just as easily be the Auld Mug itself.

"It's very competitive," Mr Lindgreen confides. "We're competing for the honour of bringing back the bottle of rum we won and sharing it with the captain and crew, so that's pretty good, isn't it?"

He has been rum racing for eight years now, sailing for 50, and at 72 is still out on the water every chance he gets, mostly thinking up ways to outwit the other rum racers.

Handicaps are hotly debated, and skulduggery is not unknown. The novice skipper who suddenly finds that Bill Miller has abided by the rules and given way does not realise the wily skipper's long-term game plan: a win will mean a tougher handicap next time round.

Most rum racers are Stewart 34 enthusiasts, although there is a smattering of MRXs today and one classic yacht.

Kevin Purcell is president of the Stewart 34 owners club. He lovingly points out the finish on his yacht, Palmyra - "one of the last wooden ones" and more than 30 years old.

"They're the Ferraris of yachts, way ahead of their time," he says. Chas Lindgreen nods gravely in agreement as he wrestles with a mound of sailcloth.

Like most rum racers, Mr Purcell won't miss a Thursday if he can help it.

"It's fabulous. It's very competitive, but it's a good way to meet people."

Any kind of people, because the beauty of the rum race is that anyone can go along, even if he or she has never sailed before, and be assigned to a boat.

Jenny Cooper arrives just in time to catch Palmyra. She lives in St Heliers and has not done much sailing but repeats the rum racer mantra: it's a good way to meet people.

Organised by Westhaven's Ponsonby Cruising Club, the race takes about two hours. First over the line gets a bottle of rum and the winners on handicap get the same. Tradition demands that participants then sit around and drink the rum after the race, talking about what went wrong and what went right.

Over at the starter's tower, Min Harold is also talking about what's going wrong and what's going right. She's hoping not to break the window with the ancient starter's gun today as she has once before.

"Well, at least I didn't drop it out the window and break it like the commodore did," she says.

Rum race starter for the past eight years, Mrs Harold is peering through binoculars trying to keep track of each boat.

"It's the camaraderie and it gives me something to do on a Thursday."

With a loud crack the gun goes off - 10 minutes to race time.

Palmyra is making fast circles under the Harbour Bridge waiting to start, but there is no sign of Mr Lindgreen.

While most of the younger crew are grouped on the port side, he is only visible as a pair of jeans under the mainsail. Working hard, determined to win that bottle of rum.