News, race results plus editorial coverage from the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, Vendée Globe, The Ocean Race, ARC, Fastnet, Transpac, Ocean Globe Race, Global Solo Challenge and Offshore Yachting from around the world.
As the entire fleet in this year's Rolex Sydney Hobart stalls in light airs, it seems that Kenny Read, skipper of the American supermaxi Comanche, has whistled up his own personal wind. At 5.10pm EADT, the big red Indian passed…
At 8. Jim and Kristy Clarke's 100ft supermaxi Comanche became the first American yacht to take line honours in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race since Larry Ellison's Sayonara in 1998. She is almost certainly the first yacht to retire from…
MERLION (Eddie MacKacKevicius) the Beneteau 40.7 from Hobsons Bay Yacht Club has taken the line honours lead in the Rudder Cup Melbourne to Devonport race. ONE FOR THE ROAD (Gary Prestedge) the Archambault 40 from Royal Yacht Club of Victoria…
After a decade of, by Rolex Sydney-Hobart standards, comparatively benign weather the race has returned with a vengeance to its classic persona. The mean southerly that made life hell for sailors off the NSW south coast last night is at…
The lead has changed twice this morning in the Launceston to Hobart Yacht Race as fleet sails slowly down the Tasmanian East Coast, spread out from south of St Helens Point north to Musselroe Bay. Light winds overnight enabled Peter…
The first night of the 2015 Rolex Sydney Hobart has delivered plenty of shocks. The retirement of defending line honours champion Wild Oats XI with a torn mainsail and 2011 winner Perpetual Loyal with unspecified damage have left the front…
It was very dramatic night for the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race fleet with 14 boats retiring, including eight time line honours winner Wild Oats XI and Perpetual Loyal. American maxi Comanche looked to be retiring after damaging their rudder…
Ragamuffin 100, with 88-year-old owner Syd Fischer on board, and the TP52 Ragamuffin, helmed by his grandson Brenton Fischer, have receievd a lot of pre-race publicity. But there is a third Ragamuffin the race as this story from the Rolex…
Pleasant sailing conditions have been forecast for the start of the 285 nautical Launceston to Hobart Yacht Race from Beauty Point on the Tamar River at 1.30pm today. And they should continue for most of race down the East Coat…
The mandatory pre-race weather briefing for the ORCV blue-water classic Wyndham Harbour Melbourne to Hobart Westcoaster and Rudder Cup Melbourne to Devonport ocean yacht races was conducted at 10:00am this morning at Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron. The Wyndham Harbour Cock of…
Following a spectacular start in front of millions of TV viewers, the Clipper Race fleet has endured a challenging first night which claimed victims of many of the super maxi frontrunners in Race 5, the famous Australian bluewater classic Rolex…
Having the comeback king himself – James Spithill – on board must have been a good omen for the giant American supermaxi Comanche. After suffering daggerboard and rudder damage during last night's storm and losing the lead to the smaller…
ROLEX SYDNEY HOBART YACHT RACE 2015 Protest No: 2 and 3 Hearing held at CYCA on the 27th December 2015 Protest: COUGAR II 5200 v LUPA of LONDON GBR 23N LUPA of LONDON GBR 23N v COUGAR II 5200 FACTS…
The start of the blue-water classic Wyndham Harbour Melbourne to Hobart Westcoaster and Rudder Cup Melbourne to Devonport ocean yachts races got underway at 3:00pm this afternoon from Portsea. In contrast to the start of yesterday’s Wyndham Harbour Cock of…
As the second night of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race settles in another yacht has told of their damage. This afternoon Comanche made a huge comeback after damaging their rudder and daggerboard. After making repairs and continuing on in…
Champion helmsman Gary Smith early last evening was driving his Launceston to Hobart Race record-holder, The Fork in the Road, across eastern Bass Strait in a bid to sail through the notorious Banks Strait before nightfall. Line honours favourite for…
Having spent the last three years sailing a Beneteau 40, and enjoying some ocean racing Jason Ward was looking to step up with a new racing yacht. After competing in the Sydney Gold Coast Race in 2014 as a warm…
Andrea Francolini is one of the best yachting photographers and after 15 years of shooting the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, he knows how to get the perfect shot. While everyone is looking at who is going to be the…
Record holding eight time Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race line honours victor, Wild Oats XI, has retired from the race after reporting a torn mainsail. Early reports indicate that the sail tore in half when the yacht was hit by…
Ho ho ho, children, Father Christmas also spent some time on board Spindrift 2. The air temperature is 20 ℃, it is 19 ℃ in the water and the sailors ate a merry Christmas eve dinner off Argentina and Uruguay. Xavier Revil…
As Boxing Day dawns, the mood on the dock at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia gets seriouser and seriouser – there is only so much time left to check, double check and check again those hundred little bits and…
The latest forecast, issued on Boxing Day morning, has mixed messages for the crews in the 2015 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. Consistent with earlier forecasts, the start at 1pm will be in a freshening north-easter, meaning the yachts will…
There is always tension on the docks at the CYCA on Boxing Day morning, but today you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. A difficult forecast promising a northerly run down the coast and then howling southerlies had the…
Australian skipper Wendy Tuck led the 12-strong Clipper 2015-16 Round the World Yacht Race fleet in the early stages of the Australian bluewater classic the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race (RSHYR). The first Australian female skipper in the 19-year history of…
When Comanche arrived in Australia for the 2014 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, she was fresh out of the shed and still undergoing work to be able to compete in the race. The team was still building major components to…
While the rest of the western world celebrates with food and booze, spare a thought for the sailors trying to set a new Jules Verne record. Here is how Antoine spent the lead up to Christmas: Delamination on the mast: “Antoine…
Bob & Sandy Oatley’s supermaxi, Wild Oats XI, will go to the start of the 71st Rolex Sydney Hobart race tomorrow with two “special weapons” on board – meat pies and the “voodoo stick”. Both are considered to be a…
Just seven days out from the start of this year's Rolex Sydney to Hobart the media relished in reporting weather conditions for the race to be as bad as the horrendous 1998 race. Conditions have tempered since then but at…
There’s plenty of chatter about weather models and the chances of a rough and uncomfortable Rolex Sydney Hobart starting in less than three days’ time, making the choice to head north to Coffs Harbour one week later even more appealing….
In a light, the like of which you don’t find anywhere else, surrounded by albatrosses, the big, red multihull made her way back into the Atlantic, leaving the desolate Southern Ocean in her wake and in so doing was very…
The glitterati of the sailing world will be in Antigua to compete in the 2016 RORC Caribbean 600. Well over 100 Olympians, World Champions, America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Race sailors will join hundreds of passionate corinthian sailors for the…
Hobart yachtsman Gary Smith is quietly confident he can emulate, or at least again achieve his sailing successes of last summer, by taking line honours for the fourth time in Tasmania’s longest offshore race, the Launceston to Hobart. Over the…
With such a star-studded top end for this year's race to Hobart, it is easy to overlook some boats. But one yacht popped up on everyone's radar at the recent Big Boat Series – Chinese Whisper. Owner Rupert Henry has…
Michael Logan, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s NSW Weather Resources manager, delivered the early race forecast to all the competing skippers this morning at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, and the overriding message is that this 2015 Rolex Sydney…
For a few sailors the Rolex Sydney Hobart is all about getting there first, but for the bulk of the fleet only one thing will really make it a Christmas to remember – a vaguely baroque silver chalice, bedecked with…
Spindrift 2 passed close to the legendary Cape Horn on Monday morning at 8:09 am UTC before heading up the Atlantic, passing through the Le Maire Strait during the middle of the afternoon. With 18h 11mn up on the split…
They are certainly quick around the buoys; a highly popular one-design choice for the well-heeled racing enthusiast, as often as not crewed by Olympic and America’s Cup professionals in glamorous global regattas stretching from Rhode Island to Mallorca. But that…
It is no secret that Matt Allen has entered both his Carkeek 60 and TP52 in this year's Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. With the days till the Boxing Day start slowing ticking by, Matt's decision on which boat to…
Michael Logan from the Bureau of Meteorology explained this morning that the Rolex Sydney Hobart fleet is in for a tough first night as a Southerly front is expected to hit the fleet. The fleet will start in a strengthening…
Italian yacht racer Giovanni Soldini will field his largest ever crew on board ‘Maserati’ when it starts this year’s Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race on Boxing Day and the team are spending the final week before the race testing both…
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