Built at Speers Point in 1936 by veteran boat builder Les Steel, the 35ft (10.7m) long Rani once went missing for four days in Bass Strait with a gale blowing and monster seas.

And yet, this "little boat that could" came up triumphant that time, beating all the opposition to romp home and win the inaugural blue water classic, the 1945 Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

Despite being the second smallest vessel in a field of only nine entrants in the historic race, the cutter surged on, decisively winning despite horrific conditions for most of the ocean race.

Skippered by its owner and visiting Royal Navy Captain John Illingworth, Rani hammered the opposition to take out line honours with its voyage of six days, 14 hours and 22 minutes on January 3, 1946. Rani was also first on handicap, being possibly one of only six yachts to do so in the history of what's become one of the world's greatest sporting challenges.

By comparison, the yacht Wayfarer didn't cross the finishing line in Hobart that year for more than 11 days. It may well be a record still standing today for the longest time taken by any entrant in the race.

Meanwhile, another yacht, the Archina II, did not finish. To give some idea of the competitiveness of Rani's skipper Illingworth, who pushed on despite a gruelling storm, let's look at what happened to fellow yacht Winston Churchill.

Favoured towards the end of the harrowing ocean race to be the likely winner, Winston Churchill was lying becalmed 100 nautical miles from the finish line when Rani crossed over to a blast from a cannon and rapturous applause on the Hobart dockside.

To put race times in perspective today, best-selling boat author Rob Mundle estimates the supermaxi yacht that won the 2017 ocean sailing classic would have cruised into Hobart while the leading yachts of the 1945 inaugural race would have been more than 500 nautical miles astern.

The organisers of today's Sydney Hobart Yacht, now in its 75th year, actually owe Captain Illingworth RN a huge debt of gratitude.

When a small group of Sydney yacht owners decided to have a leisurely 628 nautical mile (1170km) Christmas cruise down to Tasmania in late 1945 just for fun, they asked Captain Illingworth, a legendary British offshore yachtsman, if he wanted to take part, he replied: "Yes, I will if you make it a race".

The rest is history.

But when Captain Illingworth decided to race in 1945, he didn't have a yacht. He quickly looked around and found a suitable wooden one anchored at Sydney's Pittwater. By then, it was called Maharani, after a Hindu queen. Illingworth shortened the name to Rani.

It was a sturdy, canoe-stern cutter built nine years earlier by prolific Lake Macquarie shipwright Les Steel, of Speers Point, at a cost of 616 pounds ($1232). Sails and engines would have been extra, with a likely total cost of 800 pounds ($1600).

The original owner was a Dr Rowland (Rowley) Pittar, of Newcastle, who had named the yacht Doris after his wife. He sold it to a Captain H.W. Livesay who renamed it. The doctor then reportedly regretted selling his yacht and tried to buy it back, but was a month too late. It had already been sold to Illingworth.

Renowned boat builder Les Steel's work was always in demand. Following the success of Rani, he went on to build the yacht Struen Marie for a Kings Cross chemist. It won Sydney Hobart line honours in 1951 before the lake sloop Rival, built for local identities Alby Burgin and Nelson Rundle, won the 1961 Sydney Hobart race.

Since 2007, there has been a Rani Close at Speers Point in honour of the prize-winning 1945 yacht. There's also a Rani Place in the southern Sydney suburb of Kareela. Here, where street names honour Sydney Hobart winning yachts, are also Rival and Struen Marie streets.

And the high-profile ocean race just grows and grows.

But pre-World War II timber boats, although classics, simply can't compare with carbon fibre hi-tech modern yachts.

Author Rob Mundle outlines the very real danger the 1945 entrants faced in their yachts in the stirring early section of his latest 410-page book The Sydney Hobart Yacht Race ($45 RRP)

It's a colourful, revealing read. Mundle reports nine yachts set off in 1945 with high hopes but baggy canvas sails (which blew apart), few working radios, dimly lit compasses but with lots of enthusiasm.

Ray Raymond (1920-2008) once the last surviving crew member of Rani, said they'd set sail "with no ship to shore communications whatsoever".

He recalled the yacht bucking and tossing in the fierce gale, ploughing through an avalanche of water in ocean troughs with, at one stage, a wave towering above its 16-metre-high mast.

The mainsail ripped and crewman Norman Hudson proceeded to work on repairs; when finished, Hudson had hand-sewn 175ft of canvas seams.

While Rani speared through the waves, water cascaded into the cabin after deck caulking came out, Mundle writes. A blanket was torn into strips and forced between the gaps. More problems arose during the 36-hour storm. Pumps emptying the bilge failed. They had become clogged with paper labels washed off tins of food.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the 1945 adventure was to be only such ocean race for Rani.

Sadly, all evidence points to the once famous yacht, after a refit and under a new owner, being driven ashore on Mungo Beach, north of Port Stephens, in January 1959 and becoming a total loss.

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