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Sydney to Hobart survivors John Gordon and Geoff Ruggles hold fond memories of inaugural 1945 race

A month out from the 70th running of the Sydney to Hobart, the two remaining survivors from the inaugural 1945 event remember the race as if it was yesterday.

Geoff Ruggles, 90, and John Gordon, 87, took part aboard yachts Wayfarer and Winston Churchill respectively.

Winston Churchill was second across the line behind inaugural winner Rani in the 628 nautical mile race to Hobart.

Wayfarer crossed the line last after being at sea for 11 days, six hours and 20 minutes - the time remains the slowest trip to Hobart in the 70 years of the race.

Gordon was one of the youngest to contest the first race to the Hobart and the 18-year-old was a late addition to skipper Percy Coverdale's crew.

"If the vessel had sunk I would have disappeared with out a trace," Gordon told Grandstand.

"I wasn't on the crew list. Captain Perc had busted his wrist and needed someone who could operate a sextant."

Gordon said the race started calmly enough but down the coast past Jervis Bay they hit a southerly.

"It got worse and worse and worse," Gordon remembers.

"A real gear-buster. It tore our mainsail and we needed to lay over, we were buggered."

The 50-foot Winston Churchill, built in 1942 and originally used to service Tasmanian lighthouses, would continue to race in the gruelling race to Hobart but Gordon was happy with his one start in the race.

In 1996 the Winston Churchill underwent a $500,000 restoration and two years later the vessel struck tragedy in the storms of the 1998 race - the boat sank and three crew members lost their lives.

"I knew two of them personally and they died needlessly," Gordon said.

It is not a memory that Gordon likes to talk about as following the race has given him so much joy over the years and he never misses it.

Still following the race 70 years on

Each Boxing Day Gordon sets himself up in the study of his home on Sydney's northern beaches listening to a radio transmitter as yachts broadcast their positions on the twice-daily skeds.

"I've got a cobber who goes in it and he tells me what channel they'll be on, so I'm up in my study sailing with them," Gordon said.

Gordon still sails regularly and as a member of the Bayview Yacht Racing Association has taught many a young sailor including Mark Richards, the skipper of line honours defending champion Wild Oats XI.

But Gordon does not think much of the Super Maxis that dominate the headlines of the modern day Sydney to Hobart.

"They're a rich man's toy and you've got to have millions," he said.

"It's become a technical race and if you've got enough money you can win line honours."

A baptism of fire in 1945

Ruggles is also enthralled by the race despite the hardships he faced back in 1945.

It was the first time he had spent a long time at sea and he soon fell victim to sea sickness, but that was not his only problem.

He was in pain from an aching wisdom tooth but luckily one of the crew aboard Wayfarer was a dentist.

"It was an excruciating experience," Ruggles told Grandstand.

"Arthur (the dentist) spent about two seconds and I was in relief straight away."

Wayfarer soon hit a storm and the boat was in all sorts of strife.

"It knocked us about very badly and the sails were all torn," Ruggles recalls.

"We had second-hand, worn-out cotton sails which have no life at all. When you go about it at sea, everything flaps, and when old sails flap, they tear. And that's what they did all the time."

"It was a mess-up, lots of it was unexpected."

Despite the baptism of fire Ruggles loves the Hobart race.

"I think it's a spectacular event in that we all gather, however many there were or are, all of us do it because we can't stop doing it," he said.

"There's something that grabs us."