A very social climber

It is no surprise to see Mara Stransky moving around her the family-built Seven Seas 50 catamaran, Fantasia, during Audi Hamilton Island Race Week as if it’s second nature. Her gymnast-like agility comes from spending much of her young life aboard boats with dad Andrew and his partner Carolyn Smith.

Despite a great start to Race Week, sadly Fantasia was forced to withdraw from day four after a major collision minutes prior to starting their islands course. “It’s hard,” said an obviously dejected Andrew after berthing at the marina and surveying the major damage to the boat’s port bow yesterday, “we’re a low budget affair trying to do this and it’s a family home we’re driving here.”

By good fortune there are three boat builders aboard Fantasia, including Andrew, so with much scraping around for the necessary materials to effect a very temporary repair, amazingly the boat will be back out on the track in the Multihull Racing division today, Friday August 21, 2015.

“We’ve had generous offers of tools, materials and plenty of opinions,” said a more buoyant Carolyn this morning. “There really aren’t many materials available for this sort of work on the island so the whole thing’s being held together with whatever we could get hold of. I even saved the Eye of Horus that we have painted on the bows and patched that back in too!”
 
Life aboard boats started young for Mara, now 16, so setbacks such as this are not new. “Mara was very young when we crossed the Atlantic so she got her sea legs early,” recalls Carolyn.

From these nautical beginnings Mara has gone on to cover countless ocean miles. But for all the time she spends at sea this bright teenager has her feet firmly grounded on terra firma.

Not many teenagers have a social media profile on the business app, LinkedIn; but Mara does, and it reads more like the CV of a Master Mariner than the adventures of a teenager. Since winning the Darwin to Ambon Race in 2011 she and her family have taken part in 26 races across Australia and Asia, covering 29,000 nautical miles.

As a year 11 student Mara is very disciplined about her education through the Cairns Distance School. “I wanted to sail with the family in the three regattas at Airlie Beach, Hamilton Island and Magnetic Island this year, so I fitted about seven to eight weeks of school work into three weeks to make sure I could take the time out,” she explains.

Unlike many teenagers who sail, Mara started out in big boats first and has only recently come to dinghies, with some early success sailing a Laser Radial with the Queensland Sailing Team Laser Development Squad. “I spent the whole of my last holidays sailing my Laser, I just love it,” says Mara, who is also proposing to sail as crew member in all major offshore races in Australia over the 2014 – 2016 period.

Even before Fantasia arrived on Hamilton Island Mara’s ability to free climb masts was well known around the traps, an impressive feat borne out of her very evident and boundless energy. “I have a complete inability to stay still so I have to keep looking for a challenge to keep me occupied. I was doing rope gymnastics and realised that if I could do that in the gym there was no reason I couldn’t do it on a boat.”

Mast climbing is by no means the only trick in Mara’s book of sailing gymnastics, and some routines even come with a sound track. “Mara can cartwheel around the topsides of the boat roped up to a halyard.” says Carolyn, “it looks great but it makes a hell of a noise if you’re down below when she’s’ doing it, it sounds like a drum being played!”

And as to Mara’s plans for the future? “I’m hoping to go to the Australian Maritime College in Launceston, as I want to get a Master’s ticket. It’ll be good to get Deck Officer qualifications as that work pays well, but in the long term I’m really more interested in doing something like volunteering for the Sea Shepherd campaign.”

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