Peter Ralph with Cinders at the Southern 80 boat show. Photos: Oliver Shedden.
Photo by
Oliver Shedden
The iconic Southern 80 boat Cinders was on display at the 60th anniversary Southern 80 boat show to both represent the early history of the race and honour its hall of fame owner.
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Cinders is the recently adopted name of the legendary racing boat Suicide, who won three Southern 80 races in 1975, 1977, 1978 and is considered a crowd favourite.
When Australia switched from the imperial system (miles) to the metric (km’s) In 1975, the race that had traditionally been known as the Southern 50 was renamed to become the Southern 80.
That same year, Suicide enjoyed its first outright win, marking the start of a legacy.
Two years later, Suicide became the first boat to ever win back-to-back races in 1977 with a time of 42:05 and 1978 with a time of 43:30.
The iconic wooden boat also broke the five-litre record in 1976 and the six-litre record in 1977.
All three outright wins were driven by racing legend Lenny Retallick, as an early pioneer of the Southern 80, Len was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2019 and died in 2022.
Skier Roy Turner also joined the Hall of Fame in the same year, having played a vital role in the 1977 and 1978 wins.
Cinders is now owned and maintained by a friend of Retallick, Peter Ralph, who hopes that by people seeing and learning about the boat, the late Retallick’s memory will live on.
Attendees had plenty of time to get good look at the iconic boat.
Photo by
Oliver Shedden
“I observed for Lenny in the 2000’s and then when he retired in 2007, I bought the boat off him and have had it ever since,” Ralph said.
“Everyone follows Cinders, they always have, even when I was observing for Lenny, many people were following us around.
“I’ve had people come up and ask me if they can take photos to put on a T-shirt.”
Ralph emphasised that while Retallick lived near Castlemaine, he was in Echuca-Moama regularly, with the boat now residing here permanently.
“He was from Fryerstown, but he was up here all the time and camped in his bus and I live in Moama, so it’s considered a local boat,” he said.
“I feel very proud to be able to share the story of this boat and exhibit the boat to honour Lenny’s memory.”
Ralph also reflected on the 60th anniversary celebration and emphasised that the support shown at the event may have been more than the race had received in year’s past.
“The crowd is fantastic and the number of boats that have shown up is unbelievable,” he said.
“It’s a lot more people than I thought they’d get, it seems like it is more people than they get at the Southern 80 in some years.”
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