Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

There’s something about the annual 628-mile Rolex-Sydney Hobart Race that lends it to endless angles of speculation and re-analysis long after the event. We’re already a fortnight clear of the final postings of the results, yet the real anoraks and dedicated armchair admirals are continuing to go through it all in loving detail, a process that often ends up by reaching whatever conclusion you’re having yourself.

The fact that it takes place in the midst of our winter at a place which is so far away on the other side of the globe that you’re in summertime, and your way home again, by the time you reach it – and in an almost precisely inverted day-and-night time-zone too – only adds to its otherworldly fascination.

In the depths of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the annual start of the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race makes for a powerful image

Then too, because it gets so much popular and media attention, with good weather starts attracting tens of thousands of actual people - rather than screen watchers - to the best vantage points around the outer stretches of Sydney Harbour, means the image is further skewed when the vids start appearing.

Because the fact is your ordinary global viewer is interested first in seeing interesting talking heads, secondly in vivid images of any disasters which might have occurred, and only thirdly in steady chopper or drone footage of a successful boat making the best possible progress through a windy and awkward seaway, which is what dedicated sailing analysts want to watch.

ABIDING IMAGE

Thus while for many the abiding image of the race is the mind-blowing fleet with its four-line simultaneous starts sweeping seawards down the harbour towards Sydney Heads, when it’s all wrapped up much of its reporting focuses on the faces of those characterful talking legends of sailing telling their story on a preferably sunny Hobart dockside.

With their positive and relaxed presence, it somehow obscures the fact that within the previous 24 hours, they’d been thrashing to windward in a white-water seaway under a lowering grey sky. And when they have closed the coast, it appears as cliff and rock formations so weird and awe-inspiring - and plain scary- that you’d have to tone them down if they came up in CGI imagery.

If the cliffs of Tasmania in the outer approaches to Hobart were to be created by CGI, they’d have to be toned down for viewer acceptance

So the most sensible and relatable way to make sense of it all when watching from Ireland is to identify anyone from here who may be taking part in whatever capacity, and then throw the net even wider to include people of Irish descent who are now very Australian, but usually their names are a giveway. And then beyond that, we might find people who once owned boats that had Irish connections.

IMPOSSIBLY HIGH STANDARD OF IRISH HOBART DEBUT IN 1991

The problem is that we’re trying to live up to the very high Irish standard that was set from a standing start in the 1991 race. An Australian very proud of his Irishness, John Storey had put out feelers to the sailing fraternity in the Old Country about possible Irish involvement in the Southern Cross Series, a sort of Australian Admirals Cup that culminated in the Hobart Race.

Back then, when the world was young, we sent forth a team led by Harold Cudmore and including the likes of Gordon Maguire, Joe English, Kieran Jameson and many other rising stars. John Storey had prepared the ground well, with his own Farr 43 Atara being a stellar boat. With smaller competitive craft like Beyond Thunderdome – Mel Gibson’s Mad Max was all the rage in the movies at the time – Ireland was very much at the races from the get-go, winning the Southern Cross series, with Atara - Harold Cudmore and Gordon Maguire on board - winning the Hobart Race overall.

The 40ft Beyond Thunderdome being sailed by Gordon Maguire and Kieran Jameson to a good race for Ireland in the 1991 Southern Cross Series. After Thunderdome had been seriously damaged by another boat in a collision, Maguire was moved to become Harold Cudmore’s lead helm on Atara for the Sydney-Hobart Race, which they won overall

IRREVERSIBLE EFFECTS OF IRELAND’S AUSTRALIAN STARBURST

But while Ireland may have exploded like a cheerful starburst on the Australian offshore sailing scene more than 30 years ago, not all the bits from that starburst landed back home. The experience set Gordon Maguire on track to become a leading Australian professional, such that when the listings of Australian sailing pros were formally launched some time later, he was #1. Nevertheless when he won yet another Hobart Race – it became something of a habit – it was and is still regarded as an Irish triumph back here.

Gordon Maguire settling in as a significant part of Australian sailing

As for Harold Cudmore, it was another step in a remarkable career which, in 1983, had seen him brought in to provide intense game-changing coaching in aggressive starting techniques for helmsman John Bertrand, at a time when the eventually successful Australian first-ever capture of the America’s Cup from the US had seemed to be flagging.

MAKING THE BEST OF IT

He’s done it again. Gordon Maguire with the Tattersall Cup after winning it yet again, this time with Ichi Ban in 2018

It was yet another illustration of the fact that, in other very different circumstances for Ireland, Cudmore himself would have been that America’s Cup-winning helmsman. But we’ve learned to make the best of these things, so in analyzing the 2023 Hobart results, we homed in on the fact that Adrienne Cahalan (Lough Derg) navigating the RP 66 Alive was guiding the overall winner, while Will Byrne of Dun Laoghaire was on the third-placed OA RP 69 Moneypenny at the sharp end as bowman, as was Steph Lyons of Kinsale on the Cookson 12 Calibre placing fourth in Div 3.

In fact, Kinsale was there big time, as the key Irish entry was the Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl-Eden Capital raced in the Two-Handed division by Kinsale YC’s Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt, which placed fourth in class – of which more anon.

IRISH CONNECTIONS IN THE WINNING FRAMES

But meanwhile among the white hot 52-footers, Gordon Maguire (now of Sydney but really from Howth) and Cian Guilfoyle of Dun Laoghaire took line honours in class aboard Fastnet Race overall winner Caro, but were third on CT to the veteran Smuggler ex-Celestial. She went straight down the middle while Caro and the new Celestial (Sam Hynes) flailed around to the east. They were trying to find the better wind which had favoured the Mini-Maxis racing through to overall success earlier, but that good breeze had since left town.

Work in Progress. The Reichel/Pugh-designed 66ft super-successful Alive is an excellent example of how a yacht can continue to develop with dyanmis interaction between designer, owner, builder, skipper and crew

Adrienne Cahalan with the Tattersall Cup, and not for the first time. This is Hobart at the end of December 2023

To round it all out, we had Denis Power of Royal St George in Dun Laoghaire who decided to keep it simple by renting a berth aboard the 55ft charter sloop Arctos - a sort of Oz version of the classic Bill Lee Transpac sled - which finished 11th in the PHS Division. And stretching links even further, we noted that Chris Opielok of Hong Kong and Germany took second in Class 4 with his JPK 10.80 called Rockall, because as we know, when he caused Rockall III to emerge from Roy Dickson’s Corby 36 Rosie back in the day, Rockall was and is the family name for his boats, as an ancestor spent a lot of time under water in the Rockall area in command of a U Boat on a series of Das Boot missions.

THE WORD FROM SAN DIEGO: WE’RE NOT SEEING THE WOOD FOR THE TREES

But in focusing largely on Irish links - however stretched - we end up not being able to see the wood for the trees. For in this case, the trees are our intensely focused “Irish” entries, but the wood is the bigger picture of overall results trends. So Liverpool-born Jim Pugh of distinguished nautical design studio Reichel/Pugh in San Diego dropped Nixon Verbiage Industries plc a friendly email the other day to point out that RP designs took many of the best placings, what with Alive winning and others summarised here:

• 1st - 2023 Sydney Hobart - Reichel/Pugh Design No. 162 66' Alive
• 2nd - 2023 Sydney Hobart - Reichel/Pugh 72' URM Group
• 3rd - 2023 Sydney Hobart - Reichel/Pugh 69' Moneypenny
• 3rd IRC Div. 2 - 2023 Sydney Hobart - Reichel/Pugh 40' Chutzpah

"The result also seals a terrific performance for Reichel/Pugh in the race, as the top three overall came from their design board, with the Reichel/Pugh 72' URM Group finishing third over the line for second overall and Reichel/Pugh 69' Moneypenny taking third place overall. Reichel/Pugh designs are proving to be a pretty lucky for many of these races," said Duncan Hine, skipper of Philip Turner’s Tasmanian entry Alive.

Reichel/Pugh Design No. 162 66' Canting Ballast Alive was the fourth yacht to cross the finish line — ending with a time of 2 days, 2 hours, 19 minutes and 4 seconds. She becomes the second Tasmanian yacht to win dual Tattersall Cups, joining Westward, which won back-to-back Sydney to Hobart races in 1947 and 1948. The Tattersall Cup is a symbol of supremacy in one of the toughest races in the world.”

Jim Pugh has come a very long way from Liverpool

LONG-LIVED DEVELOPING DESIGNS

But what we noticed here in Howth is that many of these successful boats listed go back a very long way indeed in time, but they show the willingness of Australian owners and builders to interact with an innovative designer to keep the boats up to pace, sometimes over a decade and more:

REICHEL/PUGH'S HISTORY IN THE 628nm ROLEX SYDNEY TO HOBART BLUE WATER CLASSIC:

Reichel/Pugh Yachts have won been awarded the coveted Tattersall Cup seven times as the overall winner of the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race in 2005 Wild Oats XI, 2010 Secret Men's Business, 2011 Loki 63', 2012 Wild Oats XI, 2014 Wild Oats XI, 2018 Alive 66', 2023 Alive 66'.

• Since 1996 80' Morning Glory, Reichel/Pugh Maxis have taken Line Honors 13 times; with 100' Wild Oats XI taking Line Honors a record nine times in thirteen years (2005-2008, 2010, 2012-2014, 2018), 90' Alfa Romeo in 2002, 100' Alfa Romeo in 2009 and 100' Black Jack in 2021.
• Reichel/Pugh designs have reset the course record three times in 1996 Morning Glory 80', 2005 Wild Oats XI and 2012 Wild Oats XI.
• 1996 Reichel/Pugh designs took Line Honors 1st Morning Glory 80' and 2nd Exile 66'.
• 1996 Reichel/Pugh design Exile took 2nd Overall and 1st Class A, 2nd place Class A Morning Glory 80'.
• 2012 Reichel/Pugh designs took 1st WOXI, 2nd Loki 63' and 3rd Black Jack 66' Overall.
• 2018 Reichel/Pugh designs took Line Honors 1st WOXI and 2nd Black Jack 100'.
• 2018 Reichel/Pugh designs took 1st Alive 66' and 2nd Wild Oats X 66' (all-female crew) Overall.
• 2023 – 66' Alive – overall IRC - Race WINNER 1st - winner of the Tattersall Cup. 1st overall IRC Div 0. – Phil Turner.
• 2023 – 72' URM – 2nd overall IRC taking 3rd place Line Honours. 2nd overall IRC Div 0. – Anthony Johnston.
• 2023 – 69' Moneypenny – 3rd overall IRC. 3rd overall IRC Div 0. – Sean Langman.
• 2023 – 40' Chutzpah – 3rd overall IRC Div 2. – B. Taylor.
• 2018 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 1st to Finish, 6th ORCi Overall, 4th ORCi Division 1 – Oatley Family
• 2018 – 66' Alive – 1st Overall, 1st IRC Div 0, 1st ORCi Overall, 1st ORCi Division 1 – P. Turner
• 2018 – 100' Black Jack – 2nd in Line Honors, 4th ORCi Overall, 3rd ORCi Division 1 – P. Harburg
• 2018 – 66' Wild Oats X – 2nd Overall, 2nd IRC Div 0, 2nd ORCi Overall, 2nd ORCi Division 1 – 11th Hour Racing / Oatley Family
• 2018 – 63' Voodoo – 3rd Overall, 1st IRC Div 1, 3rd ORCi Overall, 1st ORCi Division 2 – H. Ellis
• 2018 – 40' Chutzpah – 2nd IRC Division 2, 3rd ORCi Division 2 – B. Taylor
• 2017 – 100' Black Jack – 3rd in Line Honors – P. Harburg
• 2017 – 40' Chutzpah – 3rd Division 2 (IRC) and 8th overall corrected time – B. Taylor
• 2017 – 66' Wild Oats X – 4th Division 0 & 7th in Line Honors – The Oatley Family
• 2014 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 1st to Finish and 1st Overall – B. Oatley – 8th Line Honors Win In 10 Years
• 2014 – 40' Chutzpah – 1st Class 2 (IRC) and 2nd Overall corrected time – B. Taylor
• 2014 – 52' Scarlet Runner – 1st Division 1 ORCi and 2nd Division 1 IRC – R. Date
• 2013 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 1st to Finish – B. Oatley
• 2012 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 1st to Finish & First Overall (Trifecta Win and Course Record Set: 1 day 18 hours, 23 minutes and 12 seconds) – B. Oatley
• 2012 – 63' Mini Maxi LOKI – 2nd Overall & 1st IRC Division 1 – S. Ainsworth
• 2012 – 66' Mini Maxi Black Jack – 3rd Overall IRC & 1st Overall ORCi – P. Harburg
• 2011 – 63' Mini Maxi LOKI – 1st Overall – S. Ainsworth
• 2010 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 1st to Finish – B. Oatley
• 2010 – 51' Secret Men's Business 3.5 – 1st Overall – G. Boettcher
• 2009 – 100' Alfa Romeo – 1st to Finish – N. Crichton,
• 2009 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 2nd to Finish – B. Oatley
• 2008 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 1st to Finish (Record 4th Consecutive Line Honors Win) – B. Oatley
• 2007 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 1st to Finish – B. Oatley
• 2006 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 1st to Finish – B. Oatley
• 2005 – 100' Wild Oats XI – 1st to Finish & Overall Winner Corrected Time (Trifecta Win and Course Record Set: 1 d, 18 h, 40 m and 10 s) – B. Oatley
• 2005 – 100' Alfa Romeo – 2nd to Finish & 2nd on Corrected Time in Fleet – N. Crichton
• 2002 – 90' Alfa Romeo – 1st to Finish – N. Crichton
• 1996 – 80' Morning Glory – 1st to Finish (Course Record Set: 2 d, 14 h, 7 m, 10 s) – Dr. H. Plattner
• 1996 – 66' Exile – 2nd Place Line Honors & 1st place Class A – Warwick Miller

Alive's Winning History

• 2023 Rolex Sydney-Hobart – 1st Overall, 1st IRC Div 0
• 2023 Hamilton Island Race Week - IRC Overall
• 2023 Brisbane to Hamilton Island Race - IRC Overall
• 2023 Bruny Island Race - IRC Overall
• 2023 King of the Derwent Regatta – Line Honours
• Currently holds the race record for the TasPorts Launcheston to Hobart Yacht Race
• 2019 Rolex Sydney-Hobart – 1st IRC Div 0, 1st Overall ORCi and 1st Division 1 ORCi.
• 2019 SoCal 300 – First to Finish
• 2019 Coastal Cup – First to Finish & New Course Record Set of 13h 48m 28s
• 2019 Spinnaker Cup – First to Finish
• 2019 Newport-Ensenada – 1st Overall
• 2018 Rolex Sydney-Hobart – 1st Overall, 1st IRC Div 0, 1st ORCi Overall, 1st ORCi Division 1
• 2017 Line Honors in the Veolia Bruny Island Race and missed setting a new course record by 12 minutes, but the performance earned the team both IRC and PHS corrected time victories.
• 2017 Second on line and third overall in the Brisbane to Gladstone Race
• 2017 Third on line in the Brisbane to Keppel Race
• 2016 Overall IRC winner and ORCi winner in the 10th Anniversary Edition of the Club Marine 348nm Brisbane to Keppel Tropical Yacht Race
• 2016 Overall winner of the Royal Langkawi International Regatta
• 2016 Line Honours in the Rolex China Sea Race, setting a new record for the race of 47h 31m 08s, 11 minutes and 59 seconds inside Beau Geste's record, set back in the millennium edition
• 2015 Took line honors and won IRC Division 0 in the Hong Kong Vietnam Race
• 2015 Back-to-back champion of the Sail Paradise Regatta for 2015 and 2014 inaugural regatta
• 2015 Line Honours in the Brisbane to Keppel Race
• 2014 First place ORCi and IRC overall in the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race
• 2014 Smashed the record for the 1885 nautical mile Melbourne to Vanuatu ocean race. Winning Line Honours and IRC as well as cementing a new race record of 5 days, 23 hours, 52 minutes and 45 seconds
• 2014 Second overall IRC Division 1 at Hamilton Island Race Week
• 2014 First IRC overall in Sail Paradise Regatta
• 2012 (As Black Jack) Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race – 3rd overall in IRC and 1st overall in ORCi.
• 2012 (As Black Jack) First overall in the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race
• 2012 (As Black Jack) Second fastest time in the Sydney Gold Coast race, behind Wild Oats XI
• 2010 (As Black Jack) Line Honours in the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race
• 2009 (As Black Jack) Line Honours in the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race
• 2007 (As Stark Raving Mad) Line Honours in the Newport to Cabo San Lucas Yacht Race
• 2006 (As Stark Raving Mad) Line Honours in the Ida Lewis Distance Race

The most notable example has to be the Oatley family’s Wild Oats XI, which started as a 72 footer or maybe she was an 80 footer, but that’s neither here nor there, for she is now a relatively skinny hundred footer.

LIVERPOOL’S DISTINGUISHED YACHT DESIGNER

We might like to think that Jim Pugh is in that almost-forgotten line of great Liverpool yacht designers headed by Alexander Richardson in the 1800s, as Richardson created the hyper-successful Irex for Dublin whiskey magnate John Jameson in 1884, and then in 1897 produced his gem, the beautiful Myfanwy which restorer Rob Mason brought to Dublin Bay in 2017 for the Dun Laoghaire Bicentennnial Regatta, and very deservedly win the Boat of the Regatta Trophy.

John Jameson’s legendary Richardson-designed Irex in 1884

The lovely Myfanwy on her way to success in Dublin Bay in 2017. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

But it seems that Jim’s family went from Liverpool to live in Somerset when he was ten, and then went on to live in the hotbed of yacht creation which was and is Lymington when he was 16, and soon he was so hooked on the global sailing game that it seems utterly logical that in 1983 he should end up in San Diego in California setting up Reichel/Pugh in partnership with John Reichel, originally of Oyster Bay New York.

The successful RP-designed Melges 15

Their now substantial organisation creates everything from the super-successful Melges 15 (a “Boat of the Year 2022” when first introduced in America) right up to Mega-Yachts hundreds of feet long. But behind it all there is still the great game of interacting with Australian racing owners who are willing to experiment, and they’re good and tough with it too, as Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt found with their recent Australian expedition, which Sam recalls here:

CINNAMON GIRL GOES TO HOBART

We really enjoyed the Rolex Sydney-Hobart Race 2023, a brilliant but quite brutal experience for us. We found it considerably more challenging than expected, with some particularly intense moments in the closing stages – 45+ knot gusts, 6 mtr swells breaking over the boat, a large volume of water down below, swamped and broken electrics, and one functioning life jacket between two brow-beaten sailors.

The predominance of upwind (~90%) was not what we had hoped for, and meant our chances of a great result were limited but we knuckled down and enjoyed the challenge. We want to come back in the future and give it another red-hot crack.

PREPARATION: One of the largest challenges for competing in the Sydney Hobart is the pre race admin, particularly the personal safety requirements. We both had to do a High Frequency Long Range Radio Course as the CYCA insist on HF radios being used with all competitors participating in 2 radio scheds every 24 hours. We found this one a little difficult to comprehend, seeing as we had both Yellow Brick Trackers and AIS, but we respected the CYCA requirements and worked hard to meet them, for if you missed a Sched you can be disqualified.

Naturally, we also had to meet the standard Cat 2 requirements (Sea Survival and First Aid etc.) The CYCA run a very impressive admin operation in this regard, I think we had to answer 80+ emails from various admin people in the 2.5 months building up to the race.

The required first aid kit included 40+ items with many items under prescription. Without having a local assisting with collating these items, it would have been very challenging. The CYCA run a great event though and were very helpful, including assigning us a local member contact to help with things.

BOAT: We chartered a Sunfast 3300 from Lee Condell of Performance Yachting at Pittwater, NSW. He was exceptionally helpful from start to finish, and we would strongly recommend him to others considering taking on this challenge. Without his support, I don't think we would have managed to navigate the vast amount of pre-race requirements.

The “back home” Cinnmon Girl, showing her extra-long bowsprit at the start of the Dun Laoghaire-Dingle Race 2023, in which she placed second overall and first in the Two-Handers

SAILS: We predominantly use Doyle sails and shipped ours from Cork to Sydney via air freight. We received great support in the build-up from Nicholas O'Leary at Doyle Ireland, along with his colleagues in Doyle New Zealand. Cian commissioned a new No 3 for the race that could reef to a No 4. It was delivered at short notice, along with a new A2.

The No 3 jib is reefable to a No 4 via a zip and heightened tack and clew position. It was simple to action and worked very well. The A2 we found fast and stable, a better setup we believe than the symmetrics flown by many of the other double handed entries. The A2 helped us sail into first in two handed and 6th overall in the first 12 -18 hours of the race, but unfortunately it hardly got any use after that as beating to windward was the modus operandi thereafter.

WEATHER: The initial race start went well. We were on the Third Start Line, and it was a reaching start very similar to a Kinsale start in a SW, where we rolled out the Code 0 on the gun. Despite receiving some surprising unsolicited verbal abuse from a competitor in the moments before the gun (which shocked us a little and gave them the advantage), we were 4th boat to Mark 1 from a busy line of +25 boats. However, the amount of spectator wash and dirty air from the Maxis and other bigger boats after Mark 1 made it tough going, and we seemed to slide backwards fast in the chop and variable wind as we sought to exit the Heads to Mark 2.

The first 8 hours were predominantly downwind and we went particularly well connecting the dots of breeze lines and sailed through a good portion of the fleet until the thunderstorms (constant lightning and heavy rain) sucked all the wind away around 2am on night 1. By that stage we had lined ourselves up quite well to sit in the south going current circa 30km offshore. It was running at about 3 knots – often more than the wind strength – for an uncomfortable but effective means of making miles south.

The Sydney-Hobart Course may look straightforward, but it gets colder with every mile, and the weather changes more quickly than it does in Ireland

The bearing to Tasman Island waypoint ~ 600 miles south - is 183. Due to unpredictable weather and the fact that many of the weather models were not aligning, we had bow out on the long tack imprinted into our strategy for many portions of the race. This seemed to work well due to the unusual weather systems and predominance of southerly winds in this year’s race. For strategy we used Predict Wind Pro, some Expedition routing, and race specific weather briefings from Roger “Clouds” Badham and Peter Isler. This year's weather was pretty unstable and hard to get your head around. Thre’s a good article here on the challenges in the build up.

UPWIND EMPHASIS

Unfortunately, the majority of the race transpired to be upwind, and without water ballast and carrying the higher rating for our bigger kites, we were up against it. The Bass Strait was okay, a tight reach/fetch, but with some breeze exceeding 40 knots for 4 – 6 hours, we got a more-than-reasonable kicking there.

The weather is just more extreme and faster to change than in our local waters of Ireland and Europe. In all fairness, the Aussies are a hardy bunch and well-practiced at putting up storm sails. Seamanship skills for those conditions are rarely required or practiced in Ireland. In 20 years of offshore racing in Europe and US, neither Cian nor I have seen conditions close to the weather we “enjoyed” off Tasman Island on Day 4 -5 0 knot gusts, large breakers, and 6mtr swells.

HYPOTHERMIA RISK

Thankfully the water breaking over the boat is warm ~18c around Sydney. But the constant wetness takes its toll, and temperatures drop as you head south. Despite drysuits and HPX, we were both suffering cold fatigue by end of Day 3, and with the boat totally sodden below deck, sleeping on day 4 became a bit inadvisable due to likelihood of going hypothermic as a result of body temp dropping while asleep. But at that stage, with less than 24 hours to go, you can manage without the sleep.

ISSUES: At Tasman Island (furthest southerly point of race) , we had one major issue. The main cockpit hatch seal was not keeping water out throughout the race and breaking waves on deck were seeping down below. This ramped up by Tasman Island with the breaking seas, and we had circa 350 litres of water down below deck, which was helping to send the boat more sideways than forward in the bigger gusts.

The electric bilge pump was not working, and much of the water was below floor boards that were screwed down, so you couldn't get a pipe in to pump it out. Unfortunately with no windward water ballast to counteract this, it meant we lost a lot of time to other competitors going to windward, most of whom had positive righting water ballast unlike us.

ELECTRICS PROBLEMS

The water issue became more severe in that it caused a minor fire with the electrics going out altogether, 2 miles north of Tasman island. Simultaneous with this, 2 of our lifejackets auto inflated due to the constant water, we had 1 spare but it left Sam without a lifejacket in 45+ knots and 6 mtr breaking waves.

Cinnamon Girl at sea – the further south they went, the colder and greyer it became

In some ways, it felt like a wild day surfing/kitesurfing in Garretstown Beach more than a boat race for a while - this is fine if you are happy to be out there and feel confident, but not so much if you don't, are sleep deprived and very cold.

The Red Bulls were cracked open, and we chose to bend our mindset to embrace the extreme conditions and the water/electrics issue. Condition description language was changed onboard from 'horrendous' to 'next level', and we just cracked on, making slow but steady progress to windward up to and around Tasman Island.

Luckily it was bright with good visibility. There was considerable relief when we finally got well to windward of Tasman and tacked onto port and put some north into our course to head on a tight reach for Iron Pot and the Derwent River. With no instruments we locked visuals of a few boats ahead, and kept a bearing on them. Unfortunately, with so much water onboard we continued to lose ground to competitors on the downwind final leg, as we were not surfing under our Code 0.

“ANCILLARY CHALLENGES”: During the race we also had ancillary challenges reefing the main with the bolt rope pulling out - this meant we were constantly concerned that in putting the 4th reef in during extreme breezes we would risk losing the main altogether, and so stayed under 3 reefs which was just too much for 6-8 hours in the final beat to Tasman. The mainsail had already sustained considerable damage with a number of puncture holes appearing in the mid leech due to flailing reefing lines as we struggled with the bolt rope during a reefing exercise on the 3rd night.

Kinsale in Hobart – Sam Hunt, Stephanie Lyons and Cian McCarthy in the Tasmanian sunshine. Only a day earlier, Sam and Cian had been living with hypothermia risks in pemanently wet conditions

CONCLUSIONS; Post the race, we have now made a decision to use sliders on the mainsail going forward, and are in the process of designing an offshore hatch for Cinnamon Girl so “downstairs” stays protected and dry in big seas.

RESULT: All in all we were happy enough with the way we sailed. On reflection we probably only made one self-inflicted mistake with a wrapped kite in a gybe, other than that we don't believe we made any significant errors that cost us time. While we had moded the setup of the boat for downwind, the race had the most upwind in approximately 15 years (~90%), and having spoken to a number of veterans of 20+ races, it was one of the toughest for the smaller boats in their memory.

While 2nd Corinthian IRC overall and 3rd in our class and 4th double handed was respectable, we would love to come back and see if we can improve on that,

Huge thanks to our families for supporting us on the mission, to Cian for his brave ambition and being the real driver of the campaign, and to Eden Capital for their support and flexibility, which enabled Sam to participate.

Overall results here