The perfectionist

At the end of the 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, history was made.Wild Oats XI defeated a highly favoured challenger in Comanche to claim her eighth line honours win and at the helm, skipper Mark Richards consolidated his reputation as one of the finest skippers in the sport.

The accolades were thick in the air on Constitution Dock, but perhaps the most telling compliment came from Wild Oats XI owner Bob Oatley.

The obvious pride Oatley had in his skipper was there for all the world to see, and while there was no doubting his affection for Wild Oats XI herself, or the 19-strong crew who had just rewritten yachting history, his simple words summed up not only the situation, but Richards himself.

“He is fantastic,” Oatley said of the skipper. “One of the greatest sailors in this era and a marvellous man, a complete man.”

Indeed Mark Richards is the complete package. An accomplished yachtsman who is admired by his peers and respected by his crew. A family man, business man and described by those who know him well as a ‘good bloke’.

Like most truly accomplished people, he makes it look easy, but his success in business and in sport has been hard-fought, and is the result of relentless hard work. He’s a bit of a stickler for perfection as you might expect from a man who’s won eight Sydney to Hobart yacht races and countless other regattas both here and around the world.

For Richards, nothing is done by halves, even the garaging arrangement for his beloved Audi R8 shows his attention to detail and the way he views the fruits of his hard work. He built his Audi R8 a garage with glass walls, so he could stare at it every day. And then fitted his giant fish bowl with special, super-sealing doors so it would never get dusty and always look perfect. 

Richards is the kind of guy who is so organised he designed and built his automotive gallery – which sits right next to the gym in his Sydney home so he can stare at it during his daily workouts – before he’d even chosen a car to put in the frame.  

“I wanted a Porsche, and then I took this thing for a drive, and it’s just in a totally different world,” he enthuses.

“Plus, I really wanted it to be a supercar, not just a car, and then there’s the way it sounds; when you wind the V8 right out it’s just incredible.”

Richards, 46, never misses a day in his home gym, not so much because his yachting requires physical fitness but because “I’m just getting to that age where if you don’t exercise you just fall apart.”

“You know I come down here and train and I look at the car and go, ‘wow, life’s good’, it’s as simple as that,” he says, smiling broadly. 

“There’s a TV in the gym too, but only my kids watch that. I just look at the car – that’s my little trophy in life. I pull it out of the garage and chamois it sometimes, too, just for the sheer joy of running my hands over it.”

You only need to glance at the gleaming R8’s wing mirrors, with their sailboat logo – a kind of Richards family crest, designed by his kids – to realise that his real passion is never far from his mind.

Richards’ record in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race – which sits at the pinnacle of ocean races worldwide – and his partnership with wonder boat Wild Oats XIis something akin to Tom Kristensen’s relationship with the 24 Hours of Le Mans. 

Late last year the 10-year-old super maxi came from behind to beat the far newer, and supposedly faster, ocean racer Comanche for line honours. 

Imagine putting an F1 driver in a car from a decade ago and expecting him to beat this year’s field and it gives you some idea how impressive Wild Oats XI with Richards as skipper actually is. She’s now the only yacht ever to be first home eight times and the only one to win four consecutive line honours.

“It’s a freak of a boat, you just don’t get 10-year-old boats in our sport even being competitive, so it’s just a freak to still do what it’s doing,” Richards says, gazing in admiration at a giant framed photo ofWild Oats XI on the wall of his garage.

But how much credit should the boat take, versus the skipper and his crew? Formula One teams will tell you that, at most, a driver is only worth 20 to 30 percent of a team’s performance, so what is it in sailing?

“I think it’s similar, a good crew makes a big difference, and it only takes being one or two percent better to win,” says Richards. “There are plenty of good boats out there that don’t win races

and we’ve got a bloody good team, and when it gets really rough everyone sticks together, and that’s won us a couple of races that we probably shouldn’t have won.”

As for his job, Richards says the thing most people don’t realise is that he has the lives of his 19 crew in his hands and that under maritime law the skipper is held responsible for any fatalities (six competitors died in a disastrous Sydney to Hobart in 1998).

“It’s not like other sports, if there’s any neglect on the skipper’s part, you’re in the clink,” Richards explains.  

“So when situations develop you’ve got to make sure you make the right decisions. And that’s the thing about sailing, it’s completely different every time. It’s not like a race track where you can go out there and learn it and every lap’s the same; you can’t learn the ocean.

“Suddenly everything’s changing, there’s a storm coming, it’s hailing, thunder and lightning, big seas, and there’s nowhere to hide. When it gets rough and you get into gnarly situations, you’ve got to make those big calls.”

Despite the pressure, and not having had a proper Christmas for 10 years, Richards says he’s not ready to give up the Sydney to Hobart just yet. Indeed, he seems driven by the chance of smashing the race record, good and proper. The fastest time ever is 42 hours, but he believes, with the right weather, Wild Oats XI could “do it in a day, no problem”. 

The other 11 months of the year, when he’s not driving his R8, Richards is kept extremely busy by running one of the world’s biggest boat-building companies, Grand Banks Yachts, which bought his own company, Palm Beach Motor Yacht Co Pty Ltd, last year and appointed him as its CEO.

“It’s a big job and it’s been really exciting, because I’ve gone from having 60 staff to 500 staff, but it won’t stop me racing,” he says.

“It’s like anything, you’ve got to have good people around you, and I’ve got to be able to go and do that stuff and keep myself current and my mind fresh.”

And no matter how busy he is, you know Richards will still find time to stroll down to his garage and stare through the pristine glass walls at his beloved Audi R8, because it’s the inspiration he needs to continue to push and strive for perfection.