Last year (2010) Melbourne’s Ocean Racing Club of Victoria (ORCV) claimed its Rudder Cup was “the world's oldest yacht race”. This year (2011) the ORCV have again gilded the lily to claim the Rudder Cup as “Australia’s oldest yacht race”.

Is this Déjà Vu or has September 19 “International Talk Like A Pirate Day” come early this year (http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html).

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that Sydney-Melbourne rivalry has no beginning, middle or apparent end (and no yacht race between them for obvious reasons). But Avast, me hearties! The salient facts in this case are that the Sydney to Hobart Bluewater Classic began in 1945 and the Melbourne to Hobart (the Westcoaster) began in 1972.

But to claim the Rudder Cup as “Australia’s oldest yacht race” is arrant nonsense. The Sydney Anniversary Regatta – a short ocean race to Botany Bay and return – is the oldest continuously-held sailing regatta in Australia. Now called the Australia Day Regatta, this year it celebrates its 176th edition.

The return leg is over the same coastal waters sailed by the First Fleet when, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip RN, the ships moved from Botany Bay to Port Jackson and founded what is now the great City of Sydney (and your correspondent’s birthplace).

First conducted as the Anniversary Regatta in 1837; only 49-years after the First Fleet sailed into Port Jackson and raised the Union Jack on the shores of Farm Cove – the regatta is still the focal point of Australia Day celebrations in Sydney.

Once there was a time when the only ships that went to Tasmania carried convicts. Then, in 1945, the Sydneysiders from the Cruising Yacht Club decided Sydney-Hobart would be a good way to get away from the Missus and the kids over the long Christmas-New Year break.

Pretty soon, the whole world got into the idea that Constitution Dock at Sullivan’s Cove in Hobart was the place to be on New Year’s Day and yachts started coming from every direction from Melbourne, Adelaide and Wellington.

The aptly-named Gusto scored a historic line-honours victory in the Melbourne to Hobart (M2H) Eastcoaster race. Skippered by Brian Pattinson, and based at Royal Brighton Yacht Club, Gusto became the first yacht to claim both the Eastcoaster and Westcoaster titles after winning the latter title last year (2010).

Extasea was the emphatic line-honours winner of the 2011 M2H Westcoaster race.

Gusto was also winner of the time-honoured Cock of the Bay race around Port Phillip Bay on Boxing Day. It crossed the finishing line at 6.55pm to triumph 25 minutes ahead of Goldfinger, with Veloce third. Gusto stopped the clock at 2 days, 8 hours, 55 minutes and 46 seconds.

"The boat that has the most fun is the winner," said Pattinson.

Goldfinger, skippered by Peter Blake from Sandringham, was the reigning Eastcoaster titleholder and the race record holder. Gusto set the 2011 Cock of the Bay record with a time of four hours, 40 minutes, 16 seconds but was 3ÌÌ minutes outside that in 2011. Third was Ray Shaw's XLR8 from Sandringham.

The race began from Port Melbourne's Station Pier in bleak conditions with a fresh breeze and a short, one-metre lumpy sea. But the weather improved dramatically during the race with clear skies and a 20 to 25-knot wind for most of the afternoon. There were 96 boats in the race and, despite six having to retire; there were no incidents or clashes through the day.

Deja Vu won the Rudder Cup (named after an American magazine of the same name) as the overall winner of the Melbourne to Launceston (M2L) yacht race. The Victorian yacht crossed the finish line off Tasmania's north coast after 30 hours at sea. It was three hours behind the line honours winner, Arch Rival. Deja Vu skipper, Steven Carey, and his crew were presented with the Rudder Cup at the Tamar Yacht Club at Beauty Point.

The ocean race across Bass Strait from Melbourne to Launceston, under the burgee of the Geelong Yacht Club that began in 1907 was called the Rudder Cup The inaugural race of 1907 used the same course as today – Port Phillip Heads to Low Head at the mouth of the Tamar River – and it was intended for annual competition. But it never happened.

In 2001, it was revived over the original course by the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria and the Tamar Yacht Club who fallaciously claimed it was “the world’s oldest yacht race”.

The ORCV’s Rudder Cup is now a series of three fleet-races that begins with the Cock of the Bay (now absurdly called the Boxing Day Dash because of political correctness); the Melbourne-to-Launceston yacht race; and the TasPort's Cup Race on the magnificent Tamar Estuary.

The very shinny Rudder Cup challenge trophy: Once was lost, now is found; hardly the world’s oldest but commands respect none the less.

The yacht is named Déjà Vu, but it was a case of first time lucky for Bendigo’s Corvan Hughes when he helped crew the winning vessel in the Rudder Cup.

Hughes and seven team-mates from the Royal Victorian Yacht Club won the 104th Rudder Cup after a clean sweep of the three leg race – which included a crossing of Bass Strait.

It was an incredible win for Déjà Vu’s crew, who had never raced on the ocean before but successfully navigated the treacherous waters between Melbourne and Tasmania.

“To win a cup of that category is pretty good,” Hughes said. “We raced through the night in fairly heavy seas and strong winds. We had a great crew, a great skipper, and a great navigator.”

The Rudder Cup began on Boxing Day, with a sprint across Port Phillip Bay from Station Pier to Blairgowrie.

Déjà Vu was named “Cock of the Bay” after taking the race honours, before winning the marquee Portsea to Launceston leg the next day.

The Bass Strait crossing to the entrance of the Tamar River took just over 30 hours, with the crew working in two-hour shifts followed by four hours of rest.

Nicknamed “the Paddock” by sailors, the open ocean of Bass Strait is one of the most notorious stretches of water in the world and requires plenty of good fortune to cross without incident.

“A lot of things can go wrong, but everything went right for us,” Hughes said.

“We just had luck with the wind blowing in the right direction and we had no accidents.”

Skippered by owner Steve Carey, Déjà Vu backed up to finish second overall and first on handicap in the race’s final leg on the Tamar River.

Hughes, who owns a yacht called Flying Cloud, said the crew was considering entering more ocean races, including the Sydney to Hobart classic.

Gusto in the 2010 Melbourne to Hobart Westcoaster. Photo: Mal Fairclough, The Age.

I am deeply indebted to Melanie Dinjaski, the yachting expert from the www.roar.com.au sports opinion website, for alerting me to the existence of the sublime alliteration in this modern sea shanty by the Lonely Island ensemble featuring T-Pain; Video By: Music4lyfe123. WARNING: Contains vast amounts of salty language.  Songwriters: Cherrington, A; Samberg, Andrew D; Schaffer, Akiva; Taccone, Jorma.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jheEi_R0kV0

Oh shit, get your towels ready
It's about to go down
Everybody in the place hit the fucking deck
But stay on your motherfucking toes
We running this, let's go

I'm on a boat, I'm on a boat
Everybody look at me
'Cause I'm sailing on a boat
I'm on a boat, I'm on a boat
Take a good hard look
At the motherfucking boat

I'm on a boat motherfucker, take a look at me
Straight flowing on a boat on the deep blue sea
Busting five knots, wind whipping out my coat
You can't stop me motherfucker, 'cause I'm on a boat

Take a picture, trick, I'm on a boat, bitch
We drinking Santana champ 'cause it's so crisp
I got my swim trunks and my flippie-floppies
I'm flipping burgers, you at Kinko's
Straight flipping copies

I'm riding on a dolphin, doing flips and shit
This dolphin's splashing, getting everybody all wet
But this ain't Seaworld, this is real as it gets
I'm on a boat, motherfucker, don't you ever forget

I'm on a boat and it's going fast and
I got a nautical themed, Pashmina Afghan
I'm the king of the world, on a boat like Leo
If you're on the shore, then you're sure not me, oh
Get the fuck up, this boat is real

Fuck land, I'm on a boat, motherfucker
Fuck trees, I climb buoys, motherfucker
I'm on the deck with my boys, motherfucker
This boat engine make noise, motherfucker

Hey ma, if you could see me now
Arms spread wide on the starboard bow
Gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow
Like Kevin Garnett, anything is possible

Yeah, never thought I'd be on a boat
It's a big blue watery road
Poseidon, look at me, oh, all hands on deck
Never thought I'd see the day
When a big boat coming my way
Believe me when I say I fucked a mermaid

I'm on a boat, I'm on a boat
Everybody look at me
'Cause I'm sailing on a boat
I'm on a boat, I'm on a boat
Take a good hard look
At the motherfucking boat

*TP Maher has endured more than 60 Sydney-Hobarts in his lifetime (all of them safely on terra firma) and covered nine America’s Cups on the four seas. He joined the Society of International Nautical Scribes (SINS) at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1983 but drank far too much Mount Gay Barbados Rum to remember the finer points of the iniation ceremony. He came 3rd in the Melbourne to Hobart media race in 1989 and has a trophy to prove it.