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How a bitter feud sank the Sydney to Hobart race yacht Wild Thing

IT WAS the high-profile sailing partnership that promised a return to the glory days of its maiden win in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race. But the team behind the drama-plagued Wild Thing has imploded.

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IT WAS the high-profile sailing partnership that promised a return to the glory days of its maiden win in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race.

But the team behind the drama-plagued 100-footer Wild Thing has imploded in a mire of bankruptcy, financial disputes and accusations of incompetence that famously saw the vessel disqualified just three hours before the start of the 2012 race.

The boat’s skipper Grant Wharington has been bankrupted following a disastrous property project in Victoria and has fallen out royally with the boat’s alleged owner David Price over finances and the failures of Wild Thing.

Mr Wharington’s affairs are now being scrutinised by bankruptcy trustee Pitcher Partners and Mr Price ­appeared as a witness at his bankruptcy examination in the Federal Court of Australia on Wednesday.

GRANT WHARINGTON SHATTERED AFTER WILD THING RULED OUT OF RACE

WILD THING CREW GUTTED AFTER SYDNEY TO HOBART RACE DISQUALIFICATION

SYDNEY TO HOBART DEBUTANT GIVEN WILD RIDE ABOARD WILD THING

Under questioning by ­lawyer Innis Cull, Mr Price blamed Mr Wharington for the team being disqualified from the 2012 race, which he believes Wild Thing would have won.

Officials ruled team Wild Thing had not properly submitted their paperwork, but Mr Price told the court Mr Wharington included false ­information on documents about modifications he had made to the boat, leading to them being disqualified.

“We were disqualified ­because he was inept in building and helping to build the boat,” Mr Price said.

“His representations were incorrect, he lied on documents and … the racing commissioner … forbid us from ­entering, causing great distress to everybody involved.”

Mr Wharington had lengthened the boat to 100ft and Mr Price told the court: “We were led to believe by him that he was capable of doing the works. It wasn’t until the boat was in pieces that we found out he wasn’t.”

The boat is in dock with keel issues — a delay likely to be extended due to a lack of paperwork when he bought the boat from Wharington Properties for a “distressed price”, Mr Price said in court.

Wild Thing took line honours in the 2003 Sydney to Hobart under the name Skandia but has been plagued by disaster since.

It capsized in 2004, lost a mast in 2009, collided with a media boat in 2010 and was forced to retire in 2011.

Mr Wharington was bankrupted in May 2011 after he was sued by Vero Insurance for more than $260,000.

The amount related to money Vero paid out to homeowners who bought properties, with significant defects, in one of Mr Wharington's developments at Paterson Lakes in Victoria.

The examination heard disputed claims about the value and ownership of Wild Thing, which is at risk of falling into the trustee’s hands.

Mr Price’s company, BC-39, allegedly bought the boat from Wharington Properties for about $40,000, despite estimates valuing it at more than $1 million, the court heard.

But shipping records showed it was still listed as being owned by the company.

The allegations were not put to Mr Wharington in court and he did not answer calls yesterday.

Mr Price’s accusations were not put to Mr Wharington in evidence. Repeated calls to Mr Wharington yesterday were not answered.

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WILD THING 100 yacht NOT for charter*

27m  /  88'7 | cookson | 2013 / 2023.

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The 27m/88'7" sail yacht 'Wild Thing 100' (ex. Stefan Racing) was built by Cookson . She was last refitted in 2023.

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Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race 2024

Ubs wild thing.

CYCA Past Commodore Geoff Lavis has extensively campaigned his Inglis/Murray 50 UBS Wild Thing since he purchased her in 1999, contesting numerous major events: Sydney Hobarts (2), Sydney Gold Coast (11) and Sydney Mooloolaba (3) races among others. Under original owner, Grant Wharington, also contested one each of the Brisbane Osaka and Melbourne Osaka races, for which this 25 year-old timber boat still holds the race record, set in 1995 in a little under 26 days 21 hours. She is fastidiously maintained and remains quick and very wet off the breeze! UBS Wild Thing has given her owner Lavis some exhilarating rides, including when she won PHS overall in 2006 Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, third in 2007 and second in 2009. Her last Gold Coast race was 2011, when she finished third in PHS Division 1. Has recently been updated, including new rig and sails and measured for IRC. This race will be a first gauge her performance as opposed to when she raced under PHS.  

While Lavis’ wife Pip will miss the race, their sons, Adam and Ben, will uphold the family tradition. Both are former CYCA Youth Academy students and they will be joined by others who have attended, including Amanda Scrivenor, who is one of Lavis’ drivers. Getting into shape, UBS Wild Thing recently finished second overall to Swish in Division A1 of the Land Rover Winter Series.  

Competitor Details

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Full Standings available approximately three hours after the start.

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Shop the official CYCA - Helly Hansen clothing range in person at the Club in New South Head Road, Darling Point or online below.  

From casual to technical clothing, there is something for all occasions. Be quick as stock is limited.

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The feud that sank Wharro's Wild Thing

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Wild Thing saga gets nasty as owner pays out on “Wharo” in court

Daily Telegraph. By Brenden Hills:

IT WAS the high-profile sailing partnership that promised a return to the glory days of its maiden win in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race.

But the team behind the drama-plagued 100-footer Wild Thing has imploded in a mire of bankruptcy, financial disputes and accusations of incompetence that famously saw the vessel disqualified just three hours before the start of the 2012 race.

The boat’s skipper Grant Wharington has been bankrupted following a disastrous property project in Victoria and has fallen out royally with the boat’s alleged owner David Price over finances and the failures of Wild Thing .

Mr Wharington’s affairs are now being scrutinised by bankruptcy trustee Pitcher Partners and Mr Price ­appeared as a witness at his bankruptcy examination in the Federal Court of Australia on Wednesday.

Under questioning by ­lawyer Innis Cull, Mr Price blamed Mr Wharington for the team being disqualified from the 2012 race, which he believes Wild Thing would have won.

Continue reading here .

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Little Harbor 70 ~ WILD THING. Back on the market with huge price reduction!

One look at  WILD THING ’s spinnaker emblazoned with a cartoon monster from the iconic children’s picture book  Where the Wild Things Are  by Maurice Sendak and one knows immediately where the name came from and what this boat is all about:  adventure and making memories with family and friends. Indeed, the owners of over twenty years have raised a family of three girls – with grandchildren now in their mix – aboard WILD THING primarily along the US east coast and throughout the Caribbean but also in Europe. The yacht has been central to this family’s life for decades and has truly been a spectacular platform for adventures for the young and young at heart. 

Now offered for sale with a major price adjustment from $1.2M to $950,000.

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WILD THING I

WILD THING I is a 25.21 m Sail Yacht, built in the United States of America by Strickland and delivered in 1998.

Her power comes from a Yanmar diesel engine.

She was designed by Justin Strickland , who also completed the naval architecture. Justin Strickland has designed 1 yacht and created the naval architecture for 1 yacht for yachts above 24 metres.

WILD THING I is one of 995 sailing yachts in the 24-30m size range.

Specifications

• Name: WILD THING I
• Yacht Type: Sail Yacht
• Builder: Strickland
• Naval Architect: Justin Strickland
• Exterior Designer: Justin Strickland

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Among questions as Rays return home: Are they still in playoff race?

There were a few things we learned about the Rays from watching their just-concluded 10-game West Coast trip.

One thing we don’t know for sure yet is whether they are still in the American League wild-card race or playing out the string and looking to 2025.

Much of the obvious evidence points to the latter.

They have a losing record at 66-67, including 41-52 against AL teams. They went 4-6 on the trip and didn’t win a series.

Their offense has been miserable throughout August, scoring two or fewer runs in 14 of 25 games, posting a majors-worst .616 OPS and .210 average that is second from the bottom, and averaging 10.1 strikeouts per game.

Their odds of making the playoffs according to fangraphs.com calculations are just 1.6%, better than only the Rangers , Blue Jays, Angels, A’s and White Sox in the AL. They’re only a slightly improved 2.5% per baseball-reference.com .

When the Rays left on the trip, fresh off a three-game sweep of the contending Diamondbacks , they were 62-61 and 6½ games out of the last playoff spot.

After returning from Seattle , they woke up Thursday six games out. That’s because they weren’t the only team in the race struggling. Most notable were the Twins, who went 2-7 over the same stretch and dropped to the third wild-card spot.

The same Twins visit Tropicana Field next week for a four-game series.

Which is a long way of saying that if the Rays can win one or two games against the Padres this weekend and find a way to sweep the Twins, they could — despite their struggles, trades and frustrating days — still be in the race.

Granted, that is asking a lot of a team that hasn’t won more than three in a row since mid-May. Hasn’t been more than three games above .500 at any point this season. And hasn’t shown any signs of being capable of the 8-of-10 kind of run manager Kevin Cash keeps trying to speak into existence.

Plus, there are a couple of other teams in their way, though they do have games remaining against the Red Sox (six) and Tigers (three).

And there is little margin for any more wasted opportunity, with only 29 games remaining. If the Twins go 14-15 the rest of the way, the Rays would have to go 21-8 to beat them out.

But stranger things have happened.

Most famously in 2011. The Rays were 75-63 on Sept. 4, nine games behind the Red Sox for what then was the only wild-card spot. But they went 15-8 and entered the last day tied. Evan Longoria hit a memorable home run that night against the Yankees , and the Rays made the playoffs.

By this time next week, as Tampa Bay embarks on a rugged trip to Baltimore , Philadelphia and Cleveland , we should have a better idea of its standing.

In the meantime, here are three things we think we know from watching the last 10 games.

Jose Siri is clutch

Love him, hate him or — perhaps most likely — a little bit of both, the capricious centerfielder came up huge.

In three of the Rays’ four wins, Siri hit a late go-ahead home run:

• A solo shot with two outs in the eighth Aug. 20 at Oakland that gave them a 1-0 victory.

• A two-run homer in the seventh the next night to turn a 2-2 tie into the 4-2 final margin.

• And a two-run shot with two outs in the seventh Tuesday at Seattle to flip a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 advantage in a 3-2 win.

That was all after a go-ahead, ninth-inning homer June 16 at Atlanta ; a game-tying, ninth-inning homer off Oakland’s Mason Miller on May 30; and an insurance-run-adding, ninth-inning homer June 20 at Minnesota .

Junior Caminero is ready

The 21-year-old rookie was called up from Triple-A Durham on Aug. 13, and by the tail end of the trip appeared to be settled in, for potentially a long time, as a key part of the Rays lineup.

After a 1-for-12 start, Caminero went 8-for-24 over the final six games with two doubles, a triple and his first two homers, and played mostly solid defense at third base.

More impressive in a way was how hard he hit the ball, with all eight hits clocked at at least 100 mph and three over 110.

His Aug. 23 homer was particularly noteworthy, as he turned a 99.6 mph fastball at the top of the strike zone from Dodgers starter Bobby Miller into a 109.2 mph, 417-foot homer.

Making their pitch

Despite an actionable case for lack of support from the hitters (25 runs in the 10 games), Rays pitchers continued what has been a strong second-half showing.

Their work on the trip was mostly solid, with a 3.36 ERA that included outings by Tyler Alexander (8-2/3 innings, 8 runs, 4 homers), a strong spot start by Triple-A call-up Jacob Lopez (5 innings, 1 run) and the return of ageless (actually 34-year-old) Erasmo Ramirez (2 innings, 0 runs).

Highlights included Shane Baz ’s 7-2/3 shutout innings Aug. 20 at Oakland, Jeffrey Springs’ five innings with one hit and nine strikeouts Tuesday at Seattle, and generally strong bullpen work, with a 2.40 ERA not counting Alexander’s rough Wednesday outing following opener Drew Rasmussen .

Most damning were the home runs allowed: 14, including nine with at least one runner on.

Since the All-Star break, Rays pitchers have a 3.10 ERA that is second-best in the majors, including a majors-leading 2.53 ERA by relievers.

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Rootless Masculinity Influencers Are Pivoting to Wildly Antisemitic Claims 

Searching for relevance, a fresh cast of characters joins a very old story. , anna merlan.

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From left: Dan Bilzerian, Nick Fuentes, Sneako, Tristan Tate, and Andrew Tate Mother Jones; Zuma; Getty; Destiny Wiki

A number of prominent figures on the right and far right are once again engaged in energetic antisemitism; this time, Instagram personality Dan Bilzerian, a poker player and lifestyle influencer previously famous for posing with women on large boats, has climbed aboard. Bilzerian and two other masculinity influencers—accused human traffickers Andrew and Tristan Tate—have increasingly pivoted to criticisms of Israel that promptly segue into antisemitic claims clearly rooted in the blood libel, a medieval conspiracy theory about Jews murdering Christians.

Bilzerian is grandiosely known as the “King of Instagram,” where he displays scenes of a lifestyle involving yachts, crowds of bikini-clad hangers-on, and exotic locales to 32 million followers. In the past few weeks, however, Bilzerian has been spouting wild conspiracies about the Israeli government , telling a podcaster that he believes it “knew about 9/11” (presumably in advance) and “had JFK assassinated.”

Last week Bilzerian was among those who shared a viral meme on Twitter/X claiming to show English translations of the Talmud, a foundational Jewish religious text, “proving” that it exists to justify the mistreatment and murder of non-Jews. These claims, which have been debunked many times over the last several centuries, seem to be largely sourced from antiquated antisemitic texts, like 1892’s The Talmud Unmasked . Besides being composed of outrageous lies—claiming, for instance, that Judaism permits the rape and murder of non-Jews—the meme cites a purported book of the Talmud that the American Jewish Committee identified as “altogether fictitious” in 1939.

“Antisemites trying to focus on the Talmud is almost as old as antisemitism gets ,” explains Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, the social media editor of Chabad.org, the Judaism website run by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a branch of Orthodox Judaism. “You have places on the dark corners of the internet where people have compiled bits and pieces that are totally made up, or taken out of context. They have the same spelling mistakes and use made-up terms in Hebrew.”

The meme vastly oversimplifies what the Talmud is: an intricate text, composed of thousands of pages of summation of oral tradition, opinions from rabbis and sages, teachings, conversations and debates. While some observant Jews devote years to understanding its mysteries, antisemitic memes presume it is a literal rulebook by which modern-day Jews live, instead of a compilation of religious and ethical arguments written between the third and sixth centuries.  

The Talmud is, Lightstone adds, written “in a language that isn’t accessible to the common person today.” Even at the time it was written, in a blend of Aramaic and Hebrew, it was “incomprehensible to the non-Jewish world,” making it even more attractive for antisemites looking to imbue it with meanings that would demonize Jews, and frame it, as Lightstone puts it, as “the things Jews don’t want you to see.”

Bilzerian isn’t alone among far-right influencers, where antisemitic rhetoric is on the rise as prominent conservatives like Candace Owens and Stew Peters make increasingly overt claims about Jewish people. While they are often cloaked in supposed critiques of the Israeli government’s invasion of Gaza, that isn’t always the case. Last week, for instance, Owens shared posts about Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was murdered in Georgia in 1915 by a lynch mob that claimed he was guilty of rape, a claim most historians dispute. She stated without evidence that Frank was related to the founder of a cult “ which practiced ritualistic incest and pedophilia.” (Owens has previously displayed an obsession with Frankism, a long-dead Jewish heretical sect from the 1700s that practiced sexual rituals, but had nothing whatsoever to do with Leo Frank.)

Owens has been joined by the Tate brothers, who she interviewed in Romania last year about the trafficking allegations against them, and who recently sat down with her for interviews again. This week, the Tates were raided at their Romanian compound for the second time, this time reportedly over allegations of sex with a minor . Upon his release, Tate retweeted a post from white nationalist Nick Fuentes, which read, “Just 2 days after Andrew Tate said that ‘the Matrix’ is really just the Jewish mafia—his house was raided and he was arrested again.”

Other masculinity influencers, like Rumble personality Sneako, celebrated their release . “Welcome home,” he tweeted, tagging the Tates. “Tell the truth, whatever the cost.” Later the same day he added in another tweet that “The Matrix is Israel.” 

Posting any one thing for too long—whether it’s misogynist screeds, pictures of women in swimwear, or Andrew Tate’s omnipresent photos of himself smoking cigars —can leave an audience feeling bored and prone to drifting away. For Andrew Tate and Bilzerian, focusing on Israel’s assaults on Gaza brings not only novelty, but an appearance of moral high ground that such influencers don’t typically get to assume; their antisemitism also provides a new enemy that could be, for instance, useful as the human trafficking case against the Tates moves forward. 

Chabad, the movement that Lightstone is part of, encourages less-observant Jews to learn more about their religious traditions. And while he’s disgusted by the meme, he hopes it, and the people like Bilzerian spreading it, might push someone to take time to look into the actual text.

“The Torah and the Talmud is here to bring truth and light to the world,” he says. “All of this hate is darkness and distraction from that purpose.”

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Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2024

Competitor Details

OFFICIAL ROLEX SYDNEY HOBART MERCHANDISE

Shop the official clothing range of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in person at the Club in New South Head Road, Darling Point or online below.  

From casual to technical clothing, there is something for all occasions. Be quick as stock is limited!