Auckland sailor has high hopes for Sydney to Hobart Ocean Race

By ROBIN BAILEY


The biggest ocean racing monohull built in New Zealand for a local owner arrived in Auckland this week as it worked up to its first event, the Sydney-Hobart Ocean Race, which starts on Boxing Day.

A showcase for New Zealand talents, the 30m (98.43ft) Zana puts the finishing touch to a huge year for Auckland designer Brett Bakewell-White.

Bakewell-White, aged 42, has gathered acclaim at both ends of the yachting spectrum over the past year - from his work with the ultra-sleek new maxi to the 6.5m Mini-Transat Wild Card, the nuggety 20-footer sailed by Chris Sayer to unofficial third place in a 4300- nautical mile race across the Atlantic.

Sayer was a "pirate" entry after French organisers changed the rules to exclude his qualifying performance.

The designer barely had time to savour the accolades following Sayer's performance before Zana was launched in Wellington. The boat is the result of a partnership between Bakewell-White, builder Paul Hakes, of Hakes Marine, and project managers Starlight Yachting for the maxi's owner, Stewart Thwaites.

Bakewell-White says the Zana project has been exciting for his small design team, who are keen sailors with a passion for performance sailboats.

Resembling a bigger version of an America's Cup yacht - it is nearly 7m longer and has a mast 4m taller - Zana is the first maxi owned by a resident New Zealander since the era of Sir Tom Clark's Buccaneer. It is a major achievement on a CV that started with the Fremantle America's Cup challenge.

After injuring his ankle in crew training, the design team discovered the temporarily disabled sailor was also an architect who could draft lines. He soon found himself working alongside Laurie Davidson, Bruce Farr and Ron Holland.

"They assumed I could draw, and while I knew little about drawing boats, I learned quickly and the seed was sown," Bakewell-White recalls.

Davidson invited the youngster to join his design studio after the campaign. A decade-long association followed before Bakewell-White went solo.

Since then he has quietly and quickly built a reputation as a designer of great diversity, with kayaks, inflatables, dinghies, luxury motor launches, cruising yachts and racing yachts.

He has won design competitions and created the 11m class for the inaugural World Match Racing Series in 1996. His 25m design was selected for the first Antarctica Cup to be raced in 2005. All his racing craft have been successful and each has an elegance of line that is rare among modern designers.

Examples include an 8.2m trailerable sports boat called Bohica, which has been clocked at more than 20 knots, and the 12.5m Time to Burn, which was New Zealand IMS champion in 1997/98 and the first 40-footer in the 1999 Around the North Island race.

His 36ft (11m) design created for the inaugural World Match-Racing Championships in Perth has been hugely successful and fleets of 15 race there regularly.

He won the Yachting New Zealand keelboat design competition with a 12m sports cruiser, which is poised to repeat the Perth experience here. Tooling is now under way for the first boat at Hakes Marine in Wellington.

His biggest powerboat design, a 33m wavepiercer for the Whangarei company New Zealand Yachts, is undergoing sea trials.

At the other end of the spectrum his design team is working on a pair of gunter-rigged cutters for the Spirit of New Zealand.

Framed on the wall of his Westhaven office is a $100 note, with "Deposit for a 90ft Race Boat" written on it by Wellington businessman Thwaites to confirm the deal to design Zana. Bakewell-White has delivered on Stage 1. Now all eyes are on the Derwent River to see whether Zana can join the star-studded list of winners of the famed Sydney-Hobart.