Exciting Summer for Paul McCartney

Hobart eye surgeon Paul McCartney  (svc 1973-77) will always remember the summer of 2024-25 for two reasons.

Firstly, he was intimately involved in a miraculous maritime rescue during the Sydney-Hobart race , and secondly, he gained a silver medal at a world yachting championship.

In the early hours of Friday 27 December, a crew member of Porco Rosso, owned and skippered by Paul, was swept overboard. Luke Wadkins deliberately unhooked his safety line to save himself from drowning.and drifted about 4 km away from the vessel before a rescue was effected.

The incident occurred about 40 nautical miles of the NSW coast.

Luke Watkins’ AIS (Automatic Identification system) enabled those on board to track his whereabouts. By the time the yacht reduces its sails and made the turn in the dark and turbulent waters, it was about an hour before they had Watkins back on board.

To quote from James Breshehan’s Mercury article (28 December):

McCartney said that the sense of relief on board was incredible.

“Everyone was calm throughout the whole rescue and concentrating on what we needed to do,” McCartney said. 

McCartney had no choice but to retire from the race.

“We lost an hour, we were all pretty shaken, and there was some damage to the mainsail track so we couldn’t set a full main,” he said.

The SB20 World Championship 2025 – was held in Singapore from 18-25 January. The championship was conducted over 11 races with some 53 entries. Paul McCartney with crew members Will Sargent and Eddie Reid, gained the silver medal.

The gold medal went to  UK trio of John Pollard, David Chapman, and Henry Wetherell.

Whereas Pollard has been helming the SB20 for more than 15 years, runner-up skipper Paul McCartney has only been steering the boat for two. Sailing with two members of the 2023 Worlds winning team - Will Sargent and Ed Reid - the Australian briefly took up the leader’s yellow jersey earlier in the regatta before Pollard’s speed and experience started to make the difference in the latter stages.

Another accolade – Team Porco Rosso has been declared the winner of the 2025 SB20 Australian Title.

Paul was inducted onto the Old Virgilians Heritage Roll in 2013. OVAtions has only been published since late 2017. From 2018, the associated citations of those given the award prior to have been included in the subsequent publications. Since Paul’s induction preceded the advent of OVAtions, it is appropriate that the citation from his induction be circulated. It is included later in this edition.