TEA GARDENS sailor Steve Taylor has completed his eighth Sydney to Hobart yacht race, this time as Navigator aboard Richard Fromentin’s 40-foot French yacht “Cocody”.

In recent years, Steve has been a regular crew member on Sebastian Bohm’s TP52 “Smuggler” and last year on “Lightning”, but joined the crew of the Cocody, which had sailed all the way from France, via the Mediterranean, Caribbean and the Panama Canal, and then across the Pacific to enter this year’s Sydney to Hobart race.

Her owner, Richard Fromentin, is a shopping centre magnate in France and flew out to Sydney before the race and skippered the boat to Hobart.

Her crew, predominantly French offshore sailors, including several active on the Figaro circuit, covered more miles – roughly 17000nm – than any other boat to get to the start of this year’s race.

Richard was looking to engage a top-quality Australian navigator to plot Cocody’s course to Hobart and grabbed Steve.

“As Navigator, Steve prepares something like 90 different projected courses on his computer to predict every possible weather event so that various course changes and resulting actions are fully planned and documented before the boats ever leave the dock,” Steve’s dad, Chris Taylor, told NOTA.

“Steve also had a tonne of prep work to do on Cocody before the race, including taking the French crew and owner Richard out sailing on Sydney Harbour and out to sea to cover the starting course plus various aspects of sailing out of the Sydney and NSW coast.”

Cocody easily handled the south westerly cold front that hit the fleet on Boxing Day evening, and the Skipper, crew and Navigator sailed a very smart race to come in 16th over the line, 8th on IRC Handicap and 1st on IRC Division 3.

Richard has discussed having Steve over to France to sail in the major Mediterranean races in 2025.

“Steve had mentioned that many terms in sailing have the same name in all languages, including most of the obscenities,” Chris said of his son’s growing French language skills.

“There apparently is a prize, called the Polish Prize, presented at the end of each Sydney to Hobart race by the Royal Hobart Yacht Club for the boat that comes the furthest to compete in the race.

“I reckon that Cocody should now get this prize in perpetuity because I doubt that anyone’s going to exceed 17,000 nm in the future.”

By Thomas O’KEEFE