As a trained fine furniture maker and lifelong sailor, Ben Gray’s search criteria for a restoration project to which he could bring his woodworking skills to bear would seem, on the face of it, entirely practical.

“I understand the charm of a classic yacht. But there’s something nice about having the people who built the boat still being there to come and say, ‘Here’s what I reckon you should do’.”

Delve a little deeper into the story of Gray’s ownership of the Doug Peterson Three Quarter Tonner Impeccable and his restoration philosophy becomes less one of pragmatism and more concerned with the yacht’s legacy and the people who brought that to life.

Built in Sydney in 1980 this modest 34-footer has legacy in spades, in no small part due to the extraordinary life story and sailing history of her original owner, the late John Walker.

Walker and his wife, Helen, fled the Czechoslovakian communist regime in 1949 and migrated to Australia, both having survived Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Not speaking a word of English – and having to constantly spell out his Czech name (Ota Wachtel) – Walker assumed his new name in Australia, having been beguiled by the famed whisky advert.

Racing in the Classics and Veterans Race in Sydney Harbour. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

He started out in Sydney as an ice skating teacher (he’d been Czech Figure Skating Pairs National Champion at 16) and went on to complete engineering qualifications and set up a highly successful timber business, building roof trusses and frames.

Aged 60 and with virtually no sailing background, Walker decided to take up yacht racing, commissioning Doug Peterson to design a competitive yacht suitable for offshore racing under the IOR rule. In an era that was fast adopting glassfibre construction, his boat would be built in timber, of course.

Having assembled a loyal crew, he set out in 1981 on what was to become an extremely successful offshore sailing program with Impeccable, which included 25 Sydney Hobart Races. His last race to Hobart in 2008, aged 86, made him the oldest skipper in the race’s history, an honour later claimed by Australian sailing legend Syd Fischer.

Impeccable won its Sydney to Hobart Division in 1986 and 1993 and several times came close to claiming the coveted Tattersall Cup for overall winner, taking 2nd place in 1986, 3rd place in 1993 and 5th in 2006.

The 34-footer took part in 25 Sydney Hobart races. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

Walker became an accomplished offshore navigator with a finely tuned sense for changes in wind and current, receiving the Ocean Racing Veteran of the Year award from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia on five occasions between 1994 and 2008. His home office still holds the plethora of trophies that he also won with Impeccable over three decades of offshore and club racing.

The original distinctive coloured stripes on Impeccable’s topsides remained a familiar sight on the Sydney Harbour racing scene until shortly before Walker’s death in 2014, aged 91.

Working from home

Such was the family’s attachment to the boat that Impeccable was never put up for sale and remained on the Walkers’ mooring outside their home. Through a sailing connection Ben Gray contacted John and Helen’s son, Gary, to express his interest in buying and restoring Impeccable.

“We kind of interviewed each other a bit,” says Gray as he recounts the unusual agreement that they struck; much of the restoration would be carried out alongside the Walker’s pontoon below their house on Long Bay, where Helen still lives.

New laminated timber tiller made by Ben Gray. The middle eight of the 11 laminates were tapered from 11-6mm over their length for strength. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

“All of a sudden, I have this amazing project on a waterfront around the corner from my house and I have the keys to the garden gate. You kind of go, ‘Wow!’” recalls Gray, who gave his venture the working title ‘The Mission Impeccable’.

A workbench was set up on the pontoon and, along with shipwright Simon Clark, Gray got to work on rebuilding the deck and cabin top. Fortuitously, a neighbouring property was in a major construction phase at the time, rendering the noise nuisance from work on the boat almost insignificant.

Gray described the old cockpit layout as a ‘winch farm’ – the hatch area rebuild has greatly simplified the systems for improved efficiency. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

Inevitably, a number of the restoration tasks required the boat to be lifted out of the water, not least of which was completely rebuilding the transom when rot was uncovered. That set the team a new raft of challenges, as there are vanishingly few yards around Sydney Harbour today where you can work on your own boat, without facing significant cost and working limitations. But such is the regard for Impeccable on Sydney’s maritime scene, that various yards – most notably White Bay 6 Marine Park – offered a place to carry out differing parts of the rebuild.

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Authentic restoration

Gray’s aspiration to restore the yacht authentically with input from its original creators was realised with remarkable serendipity. Firstly, he found Impeccable’s builder Doug Brooker, then its mast builder and rigger from Whale Spar, John Denton, and finally he made contact with Ben de Coster of Hood Sails. All three still had paper records from the boat’s early days and willingly offered technical advice.

“It’s like someone’s smiling over you and you keep getting served up the right things,” says Gray, recalling wryly that he also found six brand new unused winches online, being sold by a woman whose ex-husband had abandoned his yacht restoration!

The mast step needed to be replaced when rot was found underneath it. The timber block is made
of jarrah. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

Respect for the yacht’s original design and intent benchmarked Gray’s restoration approach; but he is happily agnostic too, where improved efficiency or safety requires a more contemporary nod here and there. The three-skinned cold moulded hull, built in Douglas fir, over Queensland ribs was found to be in good shape, but the transom, stem and cockpit floor all required rebuilds, as did the mast step.

Two features that had weathered hard ocean racing also warranted a rethink. Firstly, Doug Brooker suggested that the replacement keel – added later during Walker’s ownership to assist with IMS rating – would benefit from a stronger connection between the floors and the keelson, for which he drew up a quick sketch.

Secondly, the timber seating under all the stanchions had rotted over time. Scarfing in new plywood seats, glassing the whole deck to hull join and adding extra bracing has made the stanchions stronger and safer.

Impeccable has a wide beam with the chainplates well inboard, permitting the use of overlapping headsails. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

Eighties sail plan

John Denton inspected the 1990s replacement mast that he’d built and found it to be in good condition, only requiring some new sleeving close to the deck level. For the rigging, it would have been understandable for Gray to forego the running backstays in favour of a more easily managed set-up with swept back spreaders. But that idea did not rest easily with The Mission as it would exclude options for overlapping jibs, a feature emblematic of the 1980s IOR era. Most of the sails were still in reasonable condition, as Walker regularly updated them.

Some parts of the interior such as the galley and the proposed icebox-cum-navigation desk are yet to be completed, which reflects Gray’s pleasure in bringing his craft to these details and ‘nibbling away’, as he puts it.
The restored Impeccable was relaunched in 2022 and retains its mooring off the Walkers’ house. Sailing under the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club burgee, she is now raced at a less intense rate than under Walker’s ownership.

The subtle flare in the topsides at the stern was a common feature of IOR boats of this era. Photo: Crosbie Lorimer

“[John’s are] big shoes to fill and I don’t think I have the appetite to do 25 Hobarts,” says Gray, adding “but it does seem like the right bookend of the project to at least do one more.”

Impeccable specifications

LOA: 10.36m / 34ft 0in
Beam: 3.45m / 11ft 4in
Draught: 1.99m / 6ft 6in
Displacement: 4,045kg / 8,917lb
IRC Rating: 0.959 (2022)
Designer: Doug Peterson

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