LOCAL HERO - BOAT HISTORY

Kevin Wood acquired Local Hero as a fast, lightweight design and despite feeling that they did not get the best performance out of it, they has numerous successes in local club events as well as Hamilton Is Race Week and Geelong Festival of Sails. However, the primary objective for Kevin was the 1996 Sydney-Hobart

Local Hero entered the Sydney-Hobart, and the following is a recollection of the event from Kevin Wood: After a good start we played the Eastern side of the harbour and were in a strong position going out the Heads. The forecast was for a strong front to hit the fleet on the first night which we could see building ahead of us. Sure enough it hit us hard with a number of boats around us retiring due to damage. Apart from being a wet boat, Local Hero weathered the blow well and we continued to push south down the NSW coast. From the position reports we were doing well, however some stripped tiller bolts made steering the boat very difficult. After working feverishly we managed to get the boats to hold. About half way down the Tasmanian coast we were leading on handicap, but had to decide whether to gybe out to sea or inshore - we elected to head out to avoid possible inshore wind shadows. Unfortunately the wind strengthened inshore first and we dropped a few places. We finished 9th in our division but with the satisfaction of beating a number of our rivals from Melbourne and interstate.