Coasters Retreat, the small sailing community that helped launch the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race

Nev Watkins paused for breath as he worked his way up the steep hill from the Bonnie Doon wharf at Coasters Retreat. The 83-year-old Watkins wanted to see the place of legend one more time, including his old mate Dicko's house where the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race was born shortly after the end of World War II. Watkins said a "rebel" group of Broken Bay sailors from Coasters Retreat split from the Royal Prince Alfred Club and would unofficially race three Saturdays out of four, races that always ended at Dicko's place. It's probably no coincidence that part of the prize for a winner in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race still includes "a dozen bottles of beer", while the main meeting venue within the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia building on New Beach Road is the Coasters Retreat room. As yachting history officially records, in May 1945, Peter Luke, Jack Earl and Bert Walker invited prominent English sailor Captain John Illingworth RN to speak at a dinner in Sydney, where he famously suggested to "make a race" out of the proposed cruise to Hobart … and the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race was born.