Few sailors in the 2025 Sydney to Hobart fleet know the brutality of elite sport better than ex-Wallaby Michael Martin.<\/p>\n
\u201cApparently one of my famous quotes is I\u2019d rather get kicked in the head by an All Black than face three southerlies in a Hobart. That\u2019s pretty well close to the mark,\u201d Martin told AAP.<\/p>\n
But the six-time Test winger still sees similarities between his old life lining up alongside the Ella brothers in the early 1980s, and sailing the high seas in Australia\u2019s most famous off-shore race.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly, the start is like a Test, the bristle of the start,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re on the frontline with all the big boats. It\u2019s got a good aura, it gives you a shiver down the spine, then getting into it. I certainly don\u2019t miss getting kicked in the head.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing about Tests, or the start of the Hobart, it\u2019s a world-class event and it\u2019s very competitive. There\u2019s certainly a sense of adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n
That adventure is what keeps drawing the 70-year-old third-generation roofer back to Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day.<\/p>\n
This year marks Martin\u2019s 12th Hobart, and eighth skippering Frantic, the TP52 he bought ahead of the 2012 race.<\/p>\n
The TP52 is a competitive class of yacht suited to off-shore racing, so named for its ability to go trans-Pacific with a moderate-sized crew.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Sam Haynes skippered the TP52 Celestial to overall handicap victory.<\/p>\n
But hoisting the Tattersall Cup is not on the bucket list for Martin, who is heading up an all-amateur crew of 14 or so mates, some experienced, some not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a group of maybe 30 or 40 guys that rotate and go on the boat, and we usually have a good time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe like doing a lot of island races, like to Lord Howe, Auckland, Noumea. That\u2019s what my boat\u2019s suited for, the adventure of going to another island near us. That\u2019s what we enjoy, surfing waves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a big surfboard, full crewed with the spinnaker up, surfing waves in the trade winds. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martin has tried to include some of his old Wallabies teammates in the past, but it\u2019s never stuck.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey used to come on one time, and they reckon I\u2019m crazy, so they don\u2019t come back again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But in Martin, there\u2019s at least one former rugby player who\u2019d rather be rocking with the waves than sitting at home watching the footy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel more comfortable in the ocean than I do on land,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDriving down the freeway with a tradie on your backside when it\u2019s wet scares the crap out of me, so just coming back from New Zealand, three-up with the auto-pilot on, I feel very comfortable in the middle of the ocean, despite blowing 30 or 40 knots.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few sailors in the 2025 Sydney to Hobart fleet know the brutality of elite sport better than ex-Wallaby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-296215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}