Minnie magic

Michael “Zappa” Bell and his son, Oli, are taking on the Rolex Sydney Hobart as a 2-handed entry aboard Minnie, a Jones 42 with a decent track record.

13 December 2022

After a premature end to his maiden two-handed Rolex Sydney Hobart campaign in 2021, Michael Bell is back for another crack at the historic race and with his new boat, Minnie, the 50th entrant among a fleet of 115 yachts.

Bell, known as “Zappa”, was joined by son Matt on Rob Aldis and Peter Byford’s Azuree 46, Kayimai, for the 76th edition last year, but the pair made it just south of Wollongong before multiple instrument failures and issues with the main forced their early retirement.

That did nothing to quell Zappa’s resolve to complete the 628 nautical mile journey two-up, and he was inspired to up the ante and invest in his own fit-for-purpose yacht.

“I decided I still want to complete this journey (two-handed),” said Zappa, preparing for his 14th Sydney Hobart. “So, I looked around for a while. I looked at a lot of boats and I found this one, which has a good track record.

The Jones 42, Minnie is named in honour of Zappa’s mum.

Cadibarra 8 competed in multiple Sydney Hobarts, notably finishing third in Division 2 in 2014. Pic: Carlo Borlenghi.

The Bell family sailing aboard Adix, the iconic 65m schooner which has circumnavigated the world multiple times.

Minnie, named as a tribute to Zappa’s late mother, is a 12.9-metre Jones 42 formerly known as Cadibarra 8, which won the 2013 Melbourne to Osaka Double-Handed Yacht Race on IRC, with Paul Roberts and Martin Vaughan as co-skippers. She also competed in multiple Sydney Hobarts, notably finishing third in Division 2 in 2014.

This year, Zappa is heading to Hobart with his 25-year-old son, Oli, who has returned from Europe in time for some training with his dad.

Here, Zappa shares some thoughts about their boat, preparation and objectives in the lead up to the great race south.

Zappa and Oli have already completed two Sydney Hobarts together.

Rounding Iron Pot aboard Kayimai in 2018.

Matt and Zappa 2021. Matt is a top competitor in ski paddleboarding in Surf Life Saving events.

What motivates you to attempt the Sydney Hobart two-handed?

Two-handed is a challenge from the beginning, there is a lot to go through, just to get the boat to the line.

Why did you choose Minnie? What makes her a great yacht?

I looked at a lot of yachts during the early part of this year, from NZ to WA, up to Queensland and down to Tasmania, none of them were perfect, however, Minnie was the closest to what I was looking for. She had done both 2-handed and fully crewed racing and did well, she is a light boat with a wide rigging base out to the gunnel and swept aft spreaders, clean and simple.

How has Minnie been sailing and is she living up to your expectations?

Minnie is living up to our expectations, once we get to ease the sheets. If it is a long beat to windward, we will be lucky to keep up to our rating, however, if we get to reach or run with the breeze, then she will sail above her rating.

What are your results so far?

We have not raced in anger yet, only some training and we did the Cabbage Tree as our qualifier, however, we could not enter the race as we had not qualified, so we paced ourselves and we are happy with our speed against some of the racing fleet.

Have you sailed her with Oli yet?

Oli started this whole exercise, back in June 2020 we were discussing the new 2-handed division in the S2H and Oli said to me “dad we could do that”. Well, that was all it took.

When one of your kids says to you “dad we can do that” you do not need much motivation to do the S2H 2 handed, I am really looking forward to it, and I hope that we do not get smashed like last year.

Oli left home at 18 and joined a three-masted Schooner called Adix, under two of the best yacht masters in the world, Paul Goss and Terry Gould. Seven years later, Oli is now the First Officer of Adix.

Oli and I have done two Hobarts together; 2018 on Kayimai and 2019 on Van Diemen. We have sailed together on Adix, where our roles were reversed – he told me what to do!

Oli and Michael, "Zappa" Bell, looking forward to the 2-handed challenge.

Why the change of crew this year – Oli replacing Matt?

As I mentioned, this was always Oli’s idea. When Oli could not get out here for last year’s race, Matt said “I’ll go with you dad”. Matt is now in Canada skiing and Oli took a month off Adix so as we could prepare Minnie in a timely manner.

As for our stiffest competition, Mistral has to be the 2-handed favourite. Rupert Henry and Greg O’Shea are the most experienced, it’s a fast boat and they’re fully committed.

For those of us who haven’t undertaken a Hobart, what’s the allure?

I love the challenge of the S2H since my first one in 1975. I still have friends from way back then. Every race you learn a little more and meet new people. The weather is the biggest challenge because of the unknown and the many variables.

It is described as the great race and once you have done it you want to go back, even after getting rolled over in 1998 S2H, the whole crew decided to get back on the horse and do it again in 1999, which was a miserable race, however, as a team we got through it.