Owner Christian Beck of LawConnect delivered a brilliant interview after sealing line honours in the 78th Sydney to Hobart yacht race.
After three straight runners-up finishes in the battle for line honours, LawConnect pulled off a remarkable comeback on the Derwent River to haul in reigning line honours winner Andoo Comanche and win by a mere 51 seconds.
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Beck, who has owned LawConnect since 2017, was in awe after claiming a maiden victory at the great race.
“I can’t believe that result. Honestly, it’s a dream come true,” he said.
“I never thought it was possible, actually.”
LawConnect steals all-time Syd-Hob victory in nailbiting finish after near miss
Andoo Comanche, a four-time line honours winner, is viewed as the finest super maxi in the world – and Beck pulled no punches talking about his own 100-footer.
“The boat, I jokingly call a s***box, but compared to Comanche it honestly is a s***box,” he said.
“I know it looks good on TV, but you go up close to that boat it’s as rough as anything. Comanche is a beautiful boat, it’s better in every way, it’s four tons lighter, etc.
“So the fact that they (his team) can make that boat beat Comanche is amazing.”
Asked how he feels about his boat now, he joked: “Do you want to buy it? It’s probably a good afternoon to sell it, when it beats Comanche! It’s probably the highlight of its career, I’m sure.”
He reserved special praise for sailing masters Tony Mutter and Chris Nicholson for getting the ‘s***box’ home in first place.
“Secondly, they had a pretty lean budget. Thirdly, they had five corporates including me on the boat to deal with, none of us know all that much about sailing. To have all of that but still win the race, it’s actually an incredible feat.”
In a race that has already seen 11 retirements, LawConnect’s journey was far from easy.
LawConnect claims closest victory! | 06:41
Beck said: “Coming out of the heads (in Sydney) one of our ropes broke, the furling. That was relatively easy to fix, but it caused a lot of problems at the start. That’s why we had to do that jibe just out of the heads.
“It was a pretty scary moment actually, we almost went into the spectator fleet.”
Then a key sail tore on the first night amid blustering winds that battered the fleet.
“It was one of our running sails. We ripped it completely, it was totally ruined. That was during one of the squalls on the first night.”
Mutter had earlier described the tricky conditions on that first night, saying: “The first day went okay through the daylight hours, and when night-time came all hell broke loose because there was plenty on.”
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