Rolex Sydney Hobart: To Hobart in Style
There are two ways you can get to Hobart, there is the wet way – cold, noisy, perched on the rail dreaming of the next Mars bar – and there’s the Swan way, dry in the cockpit, savouring the aromas…
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No chance at a record in 70th Rolex Sydney Hobart
Sailors in this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart should watch what they eat on Christmas day or they may well watch Christmas dinner all over again on Boxing Day. At the Christmas Eve briefing at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia…
Boom damage on Wild Oats XI causes last-minute repairs for Sydney-Hobart favourite
Sydney Hobart yacht race record holder, Wild Oats XI, is the centre of an intense repair effort on the eve of the big race after suffering damage during her most recent training run. The sleek supermaxi, owned by Bob Oatley…
Offshore legend makes surprise visit to CYCA marina
Loick Peyron has won … everything in sailing possibly. He is the fastest sailor around the world, he took over a 103 foot tri two months before this year's Route du Rhum and beat his round the world 130 foot…
Team Vestas Wind off the reef and on board a container ship
ALICANTE, Spain, December 22 – Team Vestas Wind’s stranded Volvo Ocean 65 boat has been retrieved from a remote reef in the Indian Ocean and on Monday was heading on a round-trip via Mauritius and Malaysia back to Europe. After…
M32 Gold Cup winter racing gets underway in Miami
Racing for the high-performance M32 catamarans starts promptly in 2015 with sailing getting under way on 8th-11th January for the M32 Miami Winter Series. Now in its second year in the warm Florida climes, the M32’s have started to become…
Everyone's a winner as ARC rally wraps up for 2014
The 29th Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) wrapped up for another year last night (20th December) with the traditional prize-giving party in Rodney Bay, Saint Lucia. Over 1,000 ARC sailors, their friends and families celebrated the safe and successful Atlantic…
Online entries open for Sydney-Mooloolaba Race
Online entry for the Sydney to Mooloolaba Yacht Race, which starts on Sydney Harbour on Friday 27th March 2015, is now open. The race is being organised by Middle Harbour Yacht Club (MHYC) in partnership with Mooloolaba Yacht Club (MYC)….
Adventures of Tubby: Hoppalong Bourkie's tale of woe
I’m starting this with a tale of woe and a reminisce of the olden days and the hard learned rules of IOR ocean racing around the Australian coast, along with the associated yacht deliveries to and from the race track….
Strong close for McConaghy Boats in final quarter of 2014
McConaghy has been busy in the last quarter of 2014, closing its year with the 24th order for the quarter including an order for 150 Optimists. On top of this, McConaghy’s line of foiling moths, the MACH2, continues in rapid…
S&S 34 comes back from the dead for Rolex Sydney Hobart
In a sea of impressive boats preparing for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, a little 33-year-old S&S34 is turning heads. With her rich blue hull, sparkling white deck and faultless stainless steel…
New Zealand sailor suing America's Cup holder Oracle Team USA
Stuff.co.nz: New Zealand sailor Matt Mitchell is suing two-time defending America's Cup champion Oracle Team USA for the US$68,000 (NZ$87,000) he has spent on legal fees fighting accusations he helped illegally alter a catamaran used in a warm-up regatta. Mitchell filed…
Overseas yachts arriving for Mount Gay Round Barbados Race
Bridgetown, Barbados (21 December, 2014): The arrival of the first overseas yachts into Bridgetown, including British VO70 Monster Project marks the start of the countdown of the 2015 Mount Gay Round Barbados Race Series, which is taking place from 16-24…
Sydney-Hobart forecast favours smaller boats as super-maxis to sail into a hole
When Andrew Treloar from the Bureau of Meteorology delivered his long-range forecast for the Rolex Sydney-Hobart race this morning, it was all bad news for the five 100ft super-maxis. According to Treloar, a pre-frontal trough that will pass over Sydney…
Roberts focused on victory in Rolex Sydney-Hobart
Just a few days out from Boxing Day and the buzz around the docks of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia is that Ray Roberts is looking like a very good bet to win this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart. He…
Army training helps Rolex Sydney-Hobart mates when the going gets tough
There’s no doubt the returned soldiers aboard Spirit of Mateship and Southern Excellence II are the kind of blokes you want around if things went horribly wrong – and for that matter, you want them for the good stuff too…
Forecasts for the “other” Christmas offshore races vary
Yesterday saw competitors for the Tassie Trio of races attend the compulsory pre-race briefing session. Discussion ranged across a variety of safety and procedural issues but was also the first indication of the likely weather. On the 26th December for…
Yachts of yesteryear to celebrate Sydney-Hobart in Parade of Sail
The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia has received overwhelming support for its Parade of Sail, to be held prior to the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race on December 26, and staged in honour of the 70th Hobart and the Club’s…
Salt-water therapy keeps cancer survivor heading south to Hobart
Warwick Sherman never really wanted to do the Rolex Sydney Hobart. He’d done plenty of ocean racing, but bashing his way across Bass Strait to get to Tasmania just didn’t grab him. Perversely, all that changed when he was diagnosed…
My wife made me do it! Jim Clark talks about his new super-maxi Comanche
From CYCA interview: Comanche’s owner, Jim Clark talks on all things including “breast feeding”. He concedes that a Rolex Sydney Hobart isn’t the ideal first race for such a big, complex machine, but: “I am married to an Australian, and…
Belcher and Ryan win Copa Brasil de Vela to top off a successful 2014
World Champions Mat Belcher (QLD) and Will Ryan (QLD) have won the Men’s 470 at the “Copa Brasil de Vela” on Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay over night. A second place in Saturday’s (20 December) medal race was enough for…
'Coming home' for Victorian – via Launceston to Hobart Race
The 2014 Launceston to Hobart Yacht Race will have special significance for Melbourne yachtsman Richard Gates – culminating a return to yachting after a break of 30 years and sailing back to where he grew up. Gates, a Melbourne-based senior…
Line up of champions for Flying Dutchman Nationals and Worlds
The Flying Dutchman, regarded as one of the finest and fastest one-design dinghy classes ever designed, will return to Sydney Harbour en masse when the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron conducts the Australian and World championships, starting next week. A fleet…
Three Peaks Race joins Lord Howe Island Race “in recess”
In a dismal day for adventure style racing The Australian Three Peaks Race committee of the Mersey Yacht Club inc. announced that the 2015 Three Peaks Race has been cancelled and the organisation will go into recess. Chairman Terry Travers…
Martinez hands over the Mapfre reins to concentrate on Nacra 17 campaign
ALICANTE, Spain, December 19 – Iker Martínez (ESP) is stepping down for the next leg as skipper of MAPFRE in the Volvo Ocean Race to concentrate on a pre-arranged commitment to prepare for the 2016 Rio Olympics. His best friend…
Volvo steps up investment in Volvo Ocean Race
ALICANTE, Spain, December 19 – Volvo Cars has underlined its commitment to the Volvo Ocean Race as part of a radical new marketing strategy that was unveiled earlier this week. The company has backed the race and been joint owner of…
Clipper Race skipper to receive award for outstanding seamanship
The Cruising Club of America (CCA) has confirmed that its 2014 Rod Stephens Trophy for Outstanding Seamanship will be awarded to Sean McCarter, skipper of the Clipper 2013-14 Round the World Yacht Race Northern Irish entry Derry-Londonderry-Doire. The award is…
Internationals flag Christmas to get to Black Rock for OK Dinghy Worlds
Stuff the turkey, keep the Christmas pudding under wraps, and put the cork back in the bottle; the athletes of the OK Dinghy class are starting to descend on Melbourne, Australia, and gearing up for their World Championship at Black…
Nathan Outteridge creates a series of foiling Moth tutorials
The International Moth Class isn't exactly a new sailing class, yet the learning curve would have to be one of the steepest out there. Moths have been on foils for almost 10 years, yet besides talking to fellow moth sailors,…
Rob and Scarlet's big adventure continues in Sydney-Hobart
Ocean sailors are daft; why else would you think it a good idea to take a modern ocean racing yacht around the world on her own bottom to compete in lots and lots of races, some thousands of miles long?…
Daryl Hodgkinson is looking for another Rolex watch
Hundreds of Australian sailors spend their lives trying to win the Tattersall’s Cup and the Rolex watch that goes with it; year after year they declare in Hobart that this was their last Rolex Sydney Hobart – definitely – for…
Sydney-Hobart spectator's guide to waypoints
When reading reports or listening to commentary of the Rolex Sydney-Hobart race, you will hear key waypoints being passed. Here's what RSH navigators tick off as they head south. Montague Island The island is off the NSW south coast, 155…
Rolex Sydney Hobart – one race, many nations
Australia’s premier ocean race has always had an international flavour; Captain Illingworth, who started the whole Sydney Hobart thing was, after all, an Englishman. In the heyday of the great aluminium maxis, legendary boats like Nirvana, Kialoa and Condor of…
Iain Murray appointed regatta director for 35th America's Cup
The Competitor Forum, comprising the six teams registered for the 2017 America’s Cup, has appointed Iain Murray as Regatta Director. Murray is a former America’s Cup skipper who also served as Regatta Director in the last America’s Cup. Murray started…
Chris Nicholson back on the reef to retrieve his Volvo boat
ALICANTE, Spain, December 18 – Team Vestas Wind skipper Chris Nicholson (AUS) has flown back to a remote Indian Ocean reef to help oversee a complicated operation to retrieve his stranded boat after it was grounded there during Leg 2…
Clipper Race to stop at Albany again in 2015
The City of Albany will host the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race for a second time when the longest and toughest ocean challenge on the planet for amateur crew reaches Western Australia in the tenth edition of the biennial…
Balancing the cost – Paul Clitheroe talks TP52 v Beneteau 45
Financial guru Paul Clitheroe calls all his boats Balance; as in balance sheet, balanced portfolio, bank balance and balance in life. This year he graduated from racing a Beneteau 45, a displacement, more or less family friendly cruiser/racer to a…
Rambler 88 and Bella Monte sign up for Les Voiles de St Barth 2015
With the recent launching of Rambler 88, George David (New York, N.Y./Newport, R.I.) is eyeing the next Les Voiles de St. Barth – scheduled for its sixth edition April 13-18, 2015 – as an early and critical step in getting…
Sailing on back-burner as Ainslie gets ready to tie the knot
The Telegragh (UK). By Sir Ben Ainslie: What a 12 months it has been. I was not sure that much could top the experience of the America's Cup last autumn but the thrill of setting up a new team, virtually…
How you can sail in the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race
If you'll be sitting in front of the television screen on Boxing Day, wishing you were on board one of the 118 yachts heading south in the great race… you could easily do so in 2015. The Clipper Round the…
