Friday 18 October marked the start of the third race of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s 2024/25 Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore – the 260 nautical mile Tollgate Islands Race.

Twenty-six competitors ranging from 32 to 100-feet and over built over 100 years apart, left the starting line at 1900hrs.

Despite lighter-than-forecast N/NE winds of 10-12 knots, the larger yachts, led by Comanche, URM Group, Whisper and Smuggler, quickly gained ground. XS Moment, the first yacht under 50 feet, followed closely, with the rest of the fleet in pursuit.

Not long into the race, a storm cell loomed, bringing rain, thunder, lightning and as well, a change in wind direction and strength.

URM Group navigator Alice Parker, late reported that around 1940hrs, “… we were hit by a solid squall, with moments of 30-knot winds. Things calmed down on the back side of the storm clouds, and we’re now back in a light northerly gradient of 8-10 knots”.

While conditions settled into lighter breeze offshore, the fleet braced for a wet night ahead and awaited a predicted southerly shift.

The VPLP Verdier 100 Comanche, chartered by James Mayo and Matt Allen, proved strong in her start to her 2024-2025 Blue Water Pointscore campaign and led the fleet for the entirety of the race. Sailing at over 20 knots at times, she managed to clear a 14 nautical mile lead over Anthony and David Johnston’s 72-foot URM Group. During the first night, David Griffith’s JV62 Whisper and Seb Bohm’s TP52 Smuggler, skippered by Steve McConaghy, were both close astern.

The front runners soon distanced themselves from the next group of yachts, led by Calibre 12 and Georgia Express.

After 18 hours, 45 minutes and 48 seconds the first yacht home was Comanche, taking both Line Honours and the top spots under both IRC and PHS handicap. Over the line, she was followed by URM Group, Whisper and Smuggler.

Despite the 52-, 62- and 72-footers being “holed up” off Batemans Bay for a few hours on Saturday morning, the four larger boats ultimately secured 1st to 4th places on IRC as the rest of the fleet experienced lighter breeze on Sunday.

Comanche won PHS ahead of Chris O’Neill’s J/99 double-handed entry Blue Planet and Lisa Callaghan’s Sydney 38 Mondo.

The double-handed fleet was as competitive as ever. Blue Planet (DH), co-skippered by Chris O’Neill and Michael Tom Johnston, not only took the win in IRC Double Handed and PHS Double Handed but also IRC Corinthian.

Chris O’Neill shared: “I just try to sail as fast as I can and let the results come. Winning the IRC Corinthian division is something I’m really happy about. I’m just a weekend sailor, so competing against the pros isn’t easy. Doing well in the Corinthian division is very satisfying. While the double-handed results are great, the fleet is quite mixed. My preference is for the IRC Corinthian division because I get to compete against both double-handers and fully-crewed boats – but all Corinthian sailors.”

With a top speed of 23 knots and a thrilling ride back, Blue Planet (DH) showed impressive speed and handling under challenging conditions: “Coming back, the breeze picked up, so we kept a lot of sail up, which made for a thrilling ride. We managed to make up a lot of the time we lost earlier. We were regularly hitting 20 knots of boat speed while surfing down waves, and our top speed was 23 knots. We had a few wipeouts, but that’s all part of the fun.”

Blue Planet (DH) entering Sydney Harbour – photo © Bow Caddy Media

Ian Smith, owner and co-skipper of Jupiter, who claimed second place in IRC Double Handed, summarised their race afterwards:

“Ocean racing is a very humbling experience. One minute you’re winning, the next the fleet has passed you, it really keeps you on your toes. We had a great start, being the first double-hander off the line, and managed well up the harbour, but Blue Planet got ahead of us through the Heads.

“A big thunderstorm hit shortly after turning south, so we dropped our A2 and put a reef in, then went west, anticipating the westerly winds, which didn’t eventuate as expected. We caught up with Rum Rebellion, but the conditions around the island became very soft. Rum Rebellion, with their local knowledge, came out ahead of us, along with Borderline.

About 11 nautical miles off Cape St George, we hoisted our A5 spinnaker, but the halyard broke shortly after and we ended up prawning for 25 minutes. After recovering the sail, all we could do was pole out the jib. We couldn’t catch up to Blue Planet or surf down the waves as well as we’d hoped.”

Despite the mishap with their broken halyard the team managed to secure a solid result and is proud of the result they achieved.

The next race in the 2024/25 Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore is the 82 nautical mile Bird Idsland Race.

2024-2025 Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore – Tollgate Islands Race – Comanche passing through Sydney Heads to the finish – photo © Bow Caddy Media

Results:

IRC Overall

1. Comanche – Matt Allen & James Mayo
2. Whisper – David Griffith
3. Smuggler – Sebastian Bohm
4. URM Group – Anthony Johnston
5. Blue Planet (DH)- Chris O’Neill

IRC Division 1

1. Comanche – Matt Allen & James Mayo
2. Whisper – David Griffith
3. Smuggler – Sebastian Bohm
4. URM Group – Anthony Johnston

IRC Division 2

1. Blue Planet (DH)- Chris O’Neill
2. Jupiter (DH) – Ian Smith
3. Supernova – Alex Seja & Felicity Nelson
4. Mondo – Lisa Callaghan
5. Calibre 12 – Richard Williams

PHS Overall

1. Comanche – Matt Allen & James Mayo
2. Blue Planet (DH)- Chris O’Neill
3. Mondo – Lisa Callaghan
4. Jupiter (DH) – Ian Smith
5. Supernova – Alex Seja & Felicity Nelson

IRC Corinthian

1. Blue Planet (DH) – Chris O’Neill
2. Supernova – Alex Seja & Felicity Nelson
3. Calibre 12 – Richard Williams
4. Rum Rebellion (DH) – Shane Connelly
5. Toucan (DH) – Edward Curry-Hyde

Wild Rose IRC

1. Supernova – Alex Seja & Felicity Nelson
2. Toucan (DH) – Edward Curry-Hyde
3. Mondo – Lisa Callaghan
4. Calibre 12 – Richard Williams

Double Handed IRC

1. Blue Planet (DH) – Chris O’Neill
2. Jupiter (DH) – Ian Smith
3. Rum Rebellion (DH) – Shane Connelly
4. Toucan (DH) – Edward Curry-Hyde
5. Verity (DH) – Paul Beath
6. Borderline (DH) – Andy Offord

Double Handed PHS

1. Blue Planet (DH) – Chris O’Neill
2. Jupiter (DH) – Ian Smith
3. Rum Rebellion (DH) – Shane Connelly
4. Toucan (DH) – Edward Curry-Hyde
5. Rumchaser (DH) – Andrew Butler

Full results available here.

Quotes from the fleet

“We are in a good groove as we approach the island. There’s still plenty of racing ahead as we navigate this lighter air transition. Fingers crossed for some wind” – Alice Parker, Navigator URM Group “At the start, as we turned south out the heads we saw the squall coming and shortened sail in anticipation of stronger winds, which was a great call. When it hit, it was even more intense than we expected, windy, wet and squally. We thought the wind would settle as the squall passed us but the dissipation took longer than anticipated” – Matt Allen, Co-Skipper Comanche

“I just try to sail as fast as I can and let the results come. We won the IRC Corinthian division, which I’m really happy about. I’m just a weekend sailor, so competing against the pros isn’t easy. Doing well in the Corinthian division is very satisfying” Chris O’Neill, co-skipper Blue Planet (DH)

“Beautiful sailing with the full moon, it was a long twilight race. Last night’s racing was some of the most beautiful I’ve done and then the sunrise topped it off” – Steve McConaghy, Skipper Smuggler

“We had a light northeasterly breeze at the start and managed to get away well, continuing up the harbour with good progress. Once we reached the Heads and turned south, we got caught in the rain squall that swept through the whole fleet. The wind shifted almost immediately to the north, so we hoisted the spinnaker. As we gybed, and later tried to bring the kite down, it wrapped tightly around the forestay a few times. It was a really tough situation. We couldn’t get the kite down until we reached the lee of South Head, but by that time, both the spinnaker and the forestay were damaged. With the incoming southerly, we decided to withdraw from the race.” Mark Butler, Co-skipper Navy One

“We are trucking along at 16 knots of boat speed, the sunset is glamerous and the vibes are high” Alice Parker, Navigator URM Group

“The ride up the coast was fantastic, we were consistenly hitting speeds of 20 to 25 knots, steering about 30 degrees, that is just 20 to 30 degrees east of the course, so when you are doing great speeds that is okay. We only hit the lighter air as we gybed into Sydney Heads. The crew did a terrific job managing everything, during our first race out.” – Matt Allen, Co-Skipper Comanche

by CYCA