A HISTORIC RACE
When his friend Peter Jenkins found the derelict hull of the Katwinchar, Bill Barry-Cotter had no idea of the adventure he was about to go on. At the Maritimo yard, it took a specialist team two years of painstaking work to restore this 115-year-old, 32-foot yacht to beyond its former glory. In fact, they restored it to Category 1 race requirements, which will allow it to take part in the 75th Rolex Sydney–Hobart race.
Standing beside it at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, proud owner Barry-Cotter told me it had been a challenging project, but he had been greatly helped by the team formed was notable for being a very different style of boat, with ketch rig, and very fast compared to others around at that time,” said Bill whose father Frank had sailed it when he was a boy. Frank owned her for five years from 1960 when he sailed around Pittwater and Sydney Harbour.
