RIP-by-Sea
Mike Bannister
John Dean
Jim Lawler
Bruce Guy
Phil Skeggs
Glyn Charles
All six died in a single race, the horror show that was the 1998 Telstra Sydney to Hobart.
A perfect storm, with monster swell and lethal southerly, threw the entire fleet into chaos. In the space of two days:
+ a wave snatched English crewman Charles off the Sword of Orion;
+ the Launceston yacht Business Post Naiad, manned by Skeggs and Guy, was dismasted and rolled;
+ the wooden Winston Churchill, carrying the other three men, was splintered and sank.
And in the sleepy scallop port of Triabunna (TAS), the yachties are remembered in the shape of a stone boat, facing the hulk of Maria Island.
Other seafarers lost to Poseidon are also saluted, including naval personnel, plus the five motorists killed when their cars sailed off the broken Derwent Bridge of 1975.
Names of cray men too are engraved around the gunwales - on creepy Chrisitan fish it must be said. And the mast? A sail-free crucifix of course. But the ripple effect is poignant. [Beside the visitor’s centre at the Maria Ferry dock.]