1985 Australian Admiral's Cup Trials

Intrigue

These photographs of the 1985 Australian Admiral's Cup trials series are from Australian yachtsman Chris Furey's personal collection. 

After winning the Admiral's Cup in 1979, Australia slumped to eighth in 1981 but bounced back somewhat in 1983 with a fourth. The 1985 trials series was held on Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay and in Bass Strait, and featured a number of new boats, including Alan Bond's new Apollo VI, the Dubois 40 Black Magic, Peter Kurt's new Farr 43 Drake's Prayer and Lou Abraham's latest 'Challenge' yacht, the Frers 43 Challenge III. Following his disappointing 1981 campaign in his original Frers 42 Hitchhiker (but with better success in 1983), Peter Briggs was back with a new Frers 40, Hitchhiker II. 

Drake's Prayer, which had earlier retired from the 1984 Sydney-Hobart with cracks for'ard, was one of the top boats in the eight race series, and showed devastating speed reaching and running in moderate to fresh winds, and backed this with better than average performance elsewhere around the track. Her worst place was tenth in the first race when the minimum raters finished quickly on a freshening breeze. After that she won two and never finished lower than fifth.

Challenge III

Don Calvert's new Tony Castro design Intrigue, rating 30.4ft, proved a real flyer in light airs and flat water, also won two races. She had to retire from the long race finale with rig damage but still finished a clear second on points. Abrahams finally made the team at long last with Challenge III, rating 33.2ft. She started the series well, slumped slightly in the mid-stages but recovered at the finish to clinch selection with a third in the final long ocean race.  

Sagacious (Farr 40) with Police Car to the left, and ex-German yacht Sudpack to the right

 The Farr 40 Sagacious, formerly Huon Spirit, won the final long race and one other race. But she slumped badly in the middle distance races and was unlucky to miss out, finishing fourth on points

Hitchhiker II

 Hitchhiker II, rating above the One Ton limit at 31.1ft, suffered drastically from a lack of preparation.  Apollo VI, with a nucleus of Australia II talent aboard, was expertly sailed and won the first race. Thereafter however she struggled to match the speed of the other minimum raters. The much vaunted Margaret Rintoul IV was never in the hunt and returned to Sydney without completing the trials.

Black Magic

So for 1985 Australia bucked the trend of many other nations who had selected minimum rating One Tonners for their teams. It was considered that the team would be big enough to clear the ruck of One Tonners, but still be small enough to be in the hunt if the Channel and Fastnet races turn into small boat benefits, as had often been the case.

Scallywag II (Farr 40)

The Australian team proved to be reasonably competitive, finishing fourth overall, and were not far behind the third placed New Zealand team. Their overall result was, however, hampered by a retirement by Challenge III in the Channel Race when a spreader collapsed soon after the start. Drake's Prayer also suffered from a broken main halyard in the Fastnet Race, but Kurt's and his crew returned to repair the halyard and headed back out to sea again. Intrigue, which had performed only averagely in the earlier One Ton Cup, was fully competitive and finished as the top yacht in the team in tenth place overall.

Dry White (right) in a close tussle with Intrigue

Apollo VI

Kialoa III (S&S Maxi)

Kialoa III was one of the most well known of Jim Kilroy's maxis to wear the famous 'Kialoa' name, and photos of her under full sail downwind are still impressive even today. Kialoa III is perhaps best remembered for her line honours victory in the 1975 Sydney-Hobart race when she broke the race record with a time of 2 days, 4 hours and 37 minutes. This was a time that wasn't beaten for 21 years.

Kialoa III was a 79 footer designed by the New York design office of Sparkman & Stephens and a maxi-rater under the IOR (70.0ft). She was a heavy displacement design but a powerful boat that was at home in many of the offshore classics of the era, including the Southern Cross Cup and Clipper Cup. She also made an appearance in New Zealand for the 1976 Dunhill Cup after her record setting Sydney-Hobart effort, and later on underwent significant alterations at the Auckland yard of McMullen & Wing with a new stern and keel. Kialoa III went on to win a number of major races, including setting a new record in the St Petersburg-Ft Lauderdale race during the 1977 SORC.

Kialoa III on launching day in 1974 at the Palmer Johnston yard (photo Facebook)

What 10,000 square feet of sail looks like - spinnaker, blooper, mainsail, mizzen and mizzen spinnaker set.

The video below shows Kialoa III and her arch rival Windward Passage enjoying the downwind conditions during the 1975 Sydney-Hobart race. The video starts with an interview with Jim Kilroy and the sailing footage commences at 3:50. 

 

Kialoa III chases Australia's Ballyhoo during the 1976 Big Boat Series in San Francisco (photo Facebook)

Kialoa III seen here finishing the 1977 Transpac (photo Phil Uhl)

Kialoa III during the 1977 Southern Cross Cup series (photo Guy Gurney)

Kialoa III during the 1977 Southern Cross Cup series (photo Guy Gurney)

Kialoa III running down the Sydney coastline during the 1977 Southern Cross Cup series (photo Guy Gurney)

Kialoa III with all sails set during the 1977 Southern Cross Cup (photo Guy Gurney)

A magnificent shot of Kialoa III running downwind off Sydney Heads with all sails set during the 1977 Southern Cross Cup (photo Guy Gurney

Kialoa III and Windward Passage in a close battle off Sydney Heads at the start of the 1977 Sydney to Hobart race (photo Phil Uhl)

Kialoa III soon after the start of the 1977 Sydney-Hobart race (photo Phil Uhl)

Kialoa III seen here soon after the start of the 1977 Sydney to Hobart race (photo Facebook)

Gybing required plenty of advance warning!

Kialoa III, as a sloop, racing Condor of Bermuda

Kialoa III racing in the 1980 SORC where she finished fifth in Class A and 20th overall (photo Guy Gurney)

Kialoa III in her modern configuration

Kialoa III as seen recently above (2022) and below (2023) (Facebook)

Jim Kilroy has written a book about the Kialoa days called Kialoa US-1: Dare to Win, available here Kialoa Book

Kialoa III seen here in Cascais during an extended cruise during the 2025 summer (photo Facebook)

Article updated October 2025

B195 (Peterson One Tonner)

Sailing trials soon after launching

B195 was commissioned by Australian yachtsman Tom Stephenson for the 1977 One Ton Cup, held in Auckland. Stephenson was a seasoned offshore campaigner, having won the Half Ton Cup in 1975 aboard his Doug Peterson designed Foxy Lady, followed with a fifth place in the 1976 edition with his Ron Holland design Southern Shamrock. For the design of his new One Tonner, Stephenson returned to Peterson who came up with a yacht that was of quite a different concept to his earlier heavier displacement style. 

Her most distinctive characteristics were perhaps a fractional rig and use of a centreboard and internal ballast - this was an approach that became almost mandatory in the summer of 1977 following the failure of the Offshore Rating Council to plug the centreboard loophole the previous year. 

B195 under construction in Bruce Keir's Melbourne yard (photo Doug Peterson Tribute page)

Deck plan of B195 (Doug Peterson Tribute page)

The B195 half model

Hydraulic bobstay detail

B195 appeared to be quite close in a number of parameters with the Farr centreboarders that had arrived on the scene for the 1977 Cup, and her stern shape was reminiscent of the previous generation of Farr designs, if a little narrower. She could perhaps best be described as a development of Peterson's 1976 Quarter Ton design Star-Eyed Stella. In an interesting turnaround between the Farr and Peterson approaches, B195 had a measured displacement some 500kg less than the Farr boats, but this was traded for slightly less length and more beam. 

The overall result was a shallower, smaller boat that carried only fractionally more sail than the Farr boats. As another point of difference, B195 relied almost entirely on internal ballast, with a light centreboard, whereas Farr had sought additional stability with centreboards that made up approximately 20 percent of their overall ballast.

The B195 campaign was underwritten by the electronics manufacturer Pioneer Sound and the yacht originally sported her sponsors name. However, Rule 26 of the international yacht racing rules at the time dictated that the name could not stand, and, after a fruitless geographical search to find a water body of the same name as the sponsor, the yacht became known simply as her sail number. This problem mirrored similar issues in New Zealand with the likes of The Red Lion and Smir-Noff-Agen, and was a somewhat farcical situation given that the Cup races, and the preceding national trials, were normally named after their commercial sponsors.

B195 sails upwind in one of the inshore races of the 1977 One Ton Cup (photo Jenny Green/Sea Spray)

B195 won her Australian trial series, with close competition provided by the winner of the 1976 Sydney-Hobart, the stock Farr 1104 Piccolo, and another 1104 Wild Turkey and the Farr centreboarder Hecate. All four boats made the trip to Auckland for the Cup. In the first race B195 came in fifth, seemingly overpowered compared with the Farr centreboarders, and the crew felt that their sails were too full compared to the New Zealand boats. But of more immediate concern was the discovery of a long crack along the starboard side of the hull which necessitated urgent repairs overnight, and for the rest of the series B195 sported a prominent patch on her waterline. 

In the next race B195 had her worst result, finishing eighth. It was apparent that B195 was more tender upwind and gave away speed to the Farr centreboarders on this point of sail. This was offset in part by good downwind speed, though her lighter displacement and a centre of gravity that didn't change whether the centreboard was up or down. B195 bounced back in the middle distance race, however, finishing second behind The Red Lion. She also started strongly in the fourth race, but was unable to hold off the New Zealand charge on the final beat and finished fifth.

Close up view of B195 during the 1977 One Ton Cup (photo Maritime Museum)

B195 slides downwind (photo Doug Peterson Tribute page)

B195 seen here at the start of the middle distance offshore race, with Mr Jumpa (left) and Smackwater Jack (right)

B195 had the worst possible start to the final race for the White Horse Trophy (325 miles). The start was moved into the harbour due to high winds, and soon after the port runner popped out of the mast and a crewman had to be hoisted aloft to reattach it during the beat out of the Rangitoto Channel. By the time the recalcitrant runner had been tamed B195 was trailing the fleet, with only Heatwave astern after they had also experienced rig problems. B195 bounced back, however, in gale force winds on the beat to Channel Island. Jenny H and Hecate had to pull out with hull damage in the big seas experienced on the first night, but B195 handled the conditions well and was really flying on the downwind leg, and later pushed into the lead on the leg to the Poor Knights Islands. The race in the top group remained close to the end, but B195 found herself too far offshore in calms on the way to the finish and had to settle for fourth, which gave her fourth place overall.

B195 sails dead downwind under spinnaker and blooper during one of the offshore races

B195 slides along during one of the offshore races alongside Smackwater Jack

Afterwards Stephenson acknowledged the speed of the Farr centreboarders that had filled the first three places, but did feel that B195 was more of an all rounder, with untapped potential in light airs and a leftover sea. 

B195 nears a windward mark in pursuit of Jenny H during the 1977 One Ton Cup (photo Maritime Museum)

B195 in Port Phillip Bay and providing some exposure for the boat's sponsor

B195 returned to Australia in time to sail for the Victorian team in the 1977 Southern Cross Cup, and was the only boat to get close to the New Zealand team of Jenny H, Smir-Noff-Agen and the Half Tonner Swuzzlebubble, with placings in the first three races of 4/3/5. She was lucky to avoid disqualification in the middle distance race for an infraction of the radio schedule rules. Stephenson claimed radio failure, although this did not impress the race committee given that B195 was still owned at that stage by an electronics manufacturer (Pioneer). Like Smir-Noff-Agen and Swuzzlebubble, B195 retired from the fourth race, the Sydney-Hobart classic, after she cracked her hull about 80 miles off Gabo Island. She retired to Eden to wait out the gale force winds and huge seas that saw a record number of retirements from the race.

B195 on Sydney Harbour during the 1977 Southern Cross Cup

B195 (left) to weather of Lovelace and Country Boy

Later the yacht was renamed Magic Pudding after being bought by a syndicate headed by John Karrasch. Her next international appearance was in the inaugural 1978 Clipper Cup held in Hawaii, where she came up against Farr keelboats Country Boy and Lovelace from New Zealand and Carrie Ann V from Hawaii in Class C. Honours were fairly even until the long ocean race (around the Hawaiian islands) when Magic Pudding held the breeze in the vital stages to finish a whopping six hours ahead of Carrie Ann V and 11 hours ahead of Country Boy to win the race overall, giving her third place in the fleet standings (second in Class C), and backing up team-mate Ragamuffin's second place to secure the King Kamehameha Trophy for Australia.

B195 (as Magic Pudding) to weather of Love Lace at the 1978 Clipper Cup (photo Facebook)

B195 (as Magic Pudding) powers along to leeward of Country Boy during the 1978 Clipper Cup (photo Phil Uhl/Facebook)

Magic Pudding sails past South Point of the big island of Hawaii during the 1978 Clipper Cup (photo Phil Uhl/Facebook)

The boat was later sold in the US and was sailed to San Diego, where she came to a sad and untimely end when she caught fire in a marina. Her bow section graced Doug Peterson's garden for many years after.

Doug and the bow of B195 (photo Doug Peterson Tribute page)

A sistership to B195, Australian yacht Deception