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Double-handers sweep the podium as southerly powers Flinders Islet fleet

Home 2026 Double-handers sweep the podium as southerly powers Flinders Islet fleet

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Race 2 of the Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore showed once again why this is Australia’s premier offshore Pointscore. At 88 nautical miles, the Flinders Islet Race is the shortest in the series. But when the southerly swept through the fleet on Saturday evening, bringing winds of up to 45 knots, it demanded seamanship, teamwork and well-prepared yachts from every crew.

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Two yachts retired: Tenacity due to a crew injury, and the double-handed J/99 Jupiter due to gear failure. Aaron Zhou’s Marguerite closed the ranks, crossing the finish line at 1:42am on Sunday morning.

Overall Honours

Jules Hall and Jan Scholten’s J/99 Disko Trooper claimed the IRC Overall win, followed by Andy Offord and Stephen Prince’s Borderline and Chris O’Neill’s Blue Planet. It is the first time in an Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore race that the entire IRC Overall podium has been made up of double-handed crews.

The same three boats dominated the results across the board, filling the podium in five divisions: IRC Overall, PHS, IRC Corinthian, Double-Handed IRC and Double-Handed PHS.

For Hall, the race went exactly as the forecast promised.

“We got exactly the forecast we thought we were going to get,” he said. “The leg down was champagne sailing all the way. It got quite windy actually. The log files recorded a gust of 32 knots on the way down.”

After a soft and tricky rounding at Flinders Islet, the real test arrived.

“We came out on port tack and after about 20 minutes to half an hour I saw this line of breeze. It just smashed into us at 40 knots,” Hall said. “It lasted about five minutes, went really calm, and then it came in from the south-west and just built and built.

“The wind strength for the return leg was around 30 to 38 knots, and the peak we recorded was 49.6. Our top boat speed was 23.8 knots, which is a bit too fast for a J/99.”

The finish was far from comfortable. Borderline, a SunFast 3300, pushed hard on the final stretch home.

“We were two-sail reaching past Cronulla, and the Sunfast 3300 just took off,” Hall said.

“But this race was great fun. It was a really good race. Every part of my body hurts today though.” Hall joked.

The first fully crewed boat home on corrected time was Ron Forster and Phil Damp’s Beneteau First 40 Ariel, in fourth. It showed that a well-sailed cruiser-racer remains a genuine contender in the right conditions.

Disko Trooper at the Flinders Islet Race in 2024.   Image: CYCA | Ashley Dart

Line Honours

As expected, Rob Appleyard’s Moneypenny claimed Line Honours, crossing the line at 7:03:08pm in an elapsed time of 9 hours 3 minutes 8 seconds. Seb Bohm’s TP52 Smuggler followed at 7:48:46pm, in 9 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds.

Behind them came a thrilling three-way sprint to the finish. Lee Hawksley’s TP52 Gusto finished third at 8:05:37pm, in 10 hours 5 minutes 37 seconds. Sean Langman’s GP42 Back 2 Black was just 29 seconds behind, crossing at 8:06:06pm in 10 hours 6 minutes 6 seconds. Richard Harris’s Cookson 50 Sticky followed at 8:08:08pm, in 10 hours 8 minutes 8 seconds.

Back 2 Black was the first of the 40-footers home. It was an impressive result for the smaller boat, which beat several larger yachts across the line in challenging conditions.

Smuggler.    Image: CYCA | Ashley Dart

Results Overview

  • IRC: Disko Trooper (DH), Borderline (DH), Blue Planet (DH)
  • PHS: Blue Planet (DH), Borderline (DH), Disko Trooper (DH)
  • IRC Corinthian: Disko Trooper (DH), Borderline (DH), Blue Planet (DH)
  • Wild Rose IRC: Pretty Woman (Richard Hudson), Kanreki (Michael Rowe and Ben Martin), Wild Oats (Gordon Smith)
  • Double-Handed IRC: Disko Trooper (DH), Borderline (DH), Blue Planet (DH)
  • Double-Handed PHS: Blue Planet (DH), Borderline (DH), Disko Trooper (DH)

The race within the race was the battle among the IRC Class 40s. Le Tiroflan, a Pogo 40, also raced but was entered in PHS only. Of the three IRC competitors, Elizabeth Tucker and Angus Clarke’s First Light made the most of the conditions to finish 20th overall, ahead of Yeah Baby Boatec Australia in 24th and Vixen Racing in 26th.


Race 3 | Tollgate Islands Race 22 September

Covering 260 nautical miles, the race will see competitors navigate out of Sydney Harbour, and turn south towards the rugged Tollgate Islands. Located four nautical miles off the coast of Batemans Bay, these rocky islands are a renowned diving spot and will serve as the rounding mark at the race’s halfway point, before the fleet heads back to Sydney Harbour.