Port Dalrymple Yacht Club member Peter Brooks is Co Skippering the 2018 Osaka Cup entrantMorning Star an S&S 34, with Jo Breen from the Tamar Yacht Club.
Jo Breen, who co-owns Morning Star with her dad Mike Breen, started her sailing at TYC in Sabots and Flying 11s and has gone onto make sailing her profession. Jo has clocked up over 30,000nm, including a solo delivery of a 28' yacht from the Azores to the UK, multiple Trans Atlantic and a Trans Pacific crossing, and she spent a season working on Skip Novak’s expedition yacht Pelagic sailing around Cape Horn, the Falkland Islands and circumnavigating South Georgia.
Co Skipper Pete Brooks has been sailing since he was 10 years old, starting at the Kelso Yacht Club. Pete has owned a number of Catamarans, a Derwent Class Peri and the Adams 8 Adams Apple. He owns the Elliott 7Live Wire and took out the club’s Single Handed series in January this year. Pete and Deb Brooks recently bought a Beneteau First 325 Jingaro, intended for future cruising. Pete’s first offshore race was the Queenscliff to Devonport in the early 80s with PDYC’s Neil Beveridge, on Neil’s East Coast 31 Vanessa. He completed the 1988 Tall Ships race on Bentley Jones’ 50’ ketch Amanda and has circumnavigated Tasmania a number of times.
Both Jo and Pete have contested a number of events together, the first being the 2015 Launceston to Hobart on Richard Grant’s Knoop 39 Cromarty Magellan. That followed with the 2016 Sydney to Hobart on Cromarty Magellan, with Pete on bow and Jo as navigator, and a win in the Corinthian Division of the race.
Over Christmas Jo and Pete completed the 2017 Melbourne to Hobart West Coaster, on Morning Star, sailing double handed as their qualifying race for the Osaka Cup.
Along with Jo and Pete on Morning Star, TYC member Tristan Gourlay and his Co Skipper Jamie Cooper are contesting the Osaka Cup in Tristan’s Adams 11.9 Force Eleven.
There are four race starts for the Osaka Cup, with Jo and Pete are the first boat away on 15th March 2018 at midday. The main fleet including Force Eleven start on 25th March. They will head out from Portsea in Victoria, and after a 5-7 week crossing of the Pacific they will arrive in the Port of Osaka, Japan.
The Port Dalrymple Yacht Club Committee and Members wish Pete and Jo, and Tristan and Jamie, a great journey on this epic adventure, that is the Osaka Cup 2018.
We will have a link to the Race Tracker as soon as it goes live so all Club Members can follow Morning Star’srace.
Melbourne Osaka Cup web page
Osaka Race History
The Osaka Cup is a 5,500nm 2 handed yacht race starting in Melbourne and finishing in Osaka and it’s one of the only South-North long distance ocean races in the world. The route passes through multiple weather systems and seasons as it crosses the Pacific Ocean.
The course starts off Portsea taking the competitors into Bass Strait and up the east coast of Australia. At some point boats cross the East Australian current into the South easterly trade winds, then through the Solomon Islands and the doldrums of the equator. It then heads into the North easterly trade winds and the equatorial current before fighting the Kuroshio (Japan Current), which flows up the Pacific Coast of Japan. The race finishes in the Port of Osaka on Japan’s Honshu Island.
The objective of the Osaka Cup is to promote a challenging long-distance, short-handed racing event traversing the Pacific Ocean and in so doing, to provide a proving ground for true seamanship. It’s also designed to encourage the development of suitable seaworthy yachts and appropriate gear, supplies and techniques for short-handed ocean crossings under sail.
The race, first held in 1987 to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the opening of the Port of Osaka, is now held every four years (on average) to celebrate the City of Melbourne and the City of Osaka Sister City and Sister Port relationship.
