Читать книгу The Proving Ground: The Inside Story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Boat Race - Bruce Knecht - Страница 17

BEFORE THE STARTING gun fired, Richard Winning was at the Winston Churchill’s helm, smoking his pipe. While most yachts were jousting for position near the front of the line, Winning was surveying the scene from near the back of the fleet. The Churchill didn’t cross the line until more than a minute after the cannon was fired. Winning was less concerned about speed and where his boat placed than Larry Ellison or Kooky. “It will be gentlemen’s ocean racing,” he had told his crew.

Nineteen-year-old Matthew Rynan, a generation younger than almost everyone on the Churchill’s crew, was disappointed. As much a kid as an adult, Rynan was a short and muscular spark plug who wore a single gold hoop through his right earlobe and a shark’s tooth around his neck. His puckish face seemed to carry a perpetual half smile. Before the race, his only real concern about the Churchill had been the age of its crewmen. Winning’s unaggressive start made him even more aware of how different he was from the rest of the crew. Come on, old man,