Thursday, December 25, 2008

Sydney-Hobart Underway



I can't help but be rooting for the lone American entry in this year's S-H race: Ragtime, a 44 year old, 65 foot plywood flyer, with a hard chined, slab sided underbody reminiscent of a stretched foiler. Maybe another American will finish much higher than expected in another premier Aussie regatta??? Not necessarily Moth-related, but visions of Charlie, Hans and Bora!


Alexander's Ragtime Band, by Irving Berlin (1911)

Oh, ma honey
Oh, ma honey
Better hurry and let's meander
Ain't you goin'
Ain't you goin'
To the leaderman, ragged meter man?
Oh, ma honey
Oh, ma honey
Let me take you to Alexander's grandstand, brass band
Ain't you comin' along?

[Refrain:]
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
Alexander's ragtime band
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
It's the best band in the land

They can play a bugle call like you never heard before
So natural that you want to go to war
That's just the bestest band what am, honey lamb

Come on along
Come on along
Let me take you by the hand
Up to the man
Up to the man
Who's the leader of the band

And if you care to hear the Swanee River played in ragtime
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
Alexander's ragtime band

[2nd verse:]
Oh, ma honey
Oh, ma honey
There's a fiddle with notes that screeches
Like a chicken
Like a chicken
And the clarinet is a colored pet
Come and listen
Come and listen
To a classical band what's peaches
Come now, somehow
Better hurry along

[Alternate line:]
So natural that you want to hear some more

2 comments:

Phil Stevenson said...

I remember Ragtime from when it was Infidel, a fast Auckland harbour racer from John Spencer, Cherub designer. It was banned from the SH race for many years because it was plywood! But its larger successor was allowed in and won at least once, after Infidel went to the US and changed to Ragtime.

I made a model of Infidel from a magazine article when I was a teanager. I still have it. About 30 inches long it needed a deeper keel to sail well and like the big one a lot of water came over the deck upwind.

Today we watched the race start and I saw Ragtime with the 60-70 footers. It set a huge white spinnacker and looked to be passing boats. It was always a downwind rocket. Looks like they have the right weather.

It still looked the same as my 40 year old model, memories.

Good luck to the old girl.

Phil Stevenson said...

Just found a story on the boat on SHR web site:
http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/news.asp?key=4139