Rum Bucket Prays for a Headwind
By Suellen Hurling
Most PIC Coastal Classic sailors want the same thing: a solid sou’wester, a large spinnaker and a sendy ride to Russell.
Quintin Fowler wants everyone to suffer.
“We want a northerly! We want to smash and bash!” declares the owner and skipper of the More 55 Rum Bucket.
“We are in a division with a bunch of planing boats that just go hammer down in a southerly, but we want a stonking northerly because Rum Bucket performs way better upwind!”
Division 1B contains boats such as Sassinate (Melges 40) and Mr Kite II (Cape 40), Clockwork (Shaw 12) which regard a strong following breeze as clearance for take-off like a jet engine. Give them a sou’wester and they will hoist an enormous amount of sailcloth, climb onto the plane and charge north while bringing sexy back to sailing.
Rum Bucket, meanwhile, will be pushing the ocean out of the way.
At 16.7 metres long, five metres wide and around 18 tonnes, the Croatian-built More 55 is a powerful performance cruiser-racer, not a carbon surfboard with a matching carbon toilet. When the high performance boats start skipping across the surface, Rum Bucket would much rather someone turn the racetrack around the other way.
A northerly would do nicely for them.
Instead of a downhill sprint, the fleet would face a long beat up the coast: slamming into waves, changing headsails and discovering which items down below had only been secured emotionally.
That is Rum Bucket territory.
While the planing boats ask, “Can we hoist?”, Quintin asks, “Can we bash into it?”
Rum Bucket isn't frightened by the difficult route. Quintin collected Rum Bucket in Croatia in 2019 and began sailing her home. She crossed the Atlantic, reached Panama as the world shut down in 2020, left his new pride and joy behind during lockdown which would later became trapped aboard a yacht carrier which was impounded after drugs were discovered on the ship.
After surviving a pandemic and an international drug bust, a wet bashy beat past Bream Head counts as a relaxing weekend.
“I love the Coastal - it’s such a great race, and I love it even more when the breeze is from the NORTH!!!!” Five explanation marks are required after that statement - because Quintin was that enthusiastic about his desire for his preferred wind direction.
It's still too far out from the start of the 2026 PIC Coastal Classic to get an accurate forecast. The race starts from 0930 on Friday morning, 23rd October. But on Monday night, 19th October, Nick Olson from PredictWind will be presenting a likely scenario of what the 100 mono and multihulls should expect. During the same session, Mike "Moose" Sanderson will be providing plenty of inside knowledge and how to manage tactical decisions during a 119nm race. Moose has thousands of offshore miles under his belt, including being the youngest ever skipper to win the Volvo Ocean Race. He did that back in 2005/2006 on board ABN Amro 1.
Everyone will benefit from attending this clinic, even if you’re not doing this particular PIC Coastal Classic.
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