Tasmanian entrants AdvantEdge and Just Farr Love will be flying the flag for their home state in this year’s Melbourne to Devonport ‘Rudder Cup’ Yacht Race.

While they may be outnumbered on the start line by Victorian entries, the Tasmanian teams boast extensive ocean racing experience and youthful exuberance and will be pitching themselves as real contenders in this ocean-racing sprint across one of the world’s gnarliest stretches of water.

AdvantEdge, an Inglis 47 Australian designed racing keelboat, is skippered by Andrew Jones from Port Sorell, and sails mostly from the Port Dalrymple Yacht Club at Beauty Point.

The AdvantEdge team is racing against the clock to repair a torn mainsail, a casualty of the recent wild and windy Hobart Brewing Company Channel Race in Hobart which saw a top true wind speed of 38 knots, boat speed of over 18 knots, and several boats retire.

Jones describes his crew of young dinghy sailors as “a bunch of rockstars, are all top sailors,” who have been working hard to get the boat ship-shape for this season’s ocean racing and will be pushing the boat hard to better their fourth place (for monohulls) across the line in the 2024 event.

“We are excited to be doing the Rudder Cup again, it’s another good hit out for us.

“I think they’ve got the taste of Bass Strait sailing now and I’m also keen to get back into sailing in our home waters,” said Jones.

Just Farr Love under sail – 2025 Melbourne to Devonport Yacht Race © Jode Robinson

Doyle Sails Tasmania’s Nick Dineen has joined AdvantEdge for the race and will offer a wealth of experience and sail trimming tips on the trip to Devonport.

While the Ocean Racing Club of Victoria’s (ORCV) Rudder Cup race is often referred to as a short sprint across Bass Strait, Jones is much more cautious, describing it as a tricky race in which tactics and navigation can be tested, depending upon the conditions.

“It’s quite a tricky race, if you look at last year, we all ended up sailing east a fair bit until we put that dive down to try to get into the stream of the north westerly winds that was there, but we couldn’t find it.

“It’s a pretty good race for the navigators as well to work out, I don’t see it as a simple dash,” said Jones, who also singled out his Geelong-based navigator Nick Smart as very thorough in his preparation for every race.

Onboard alongside Smart and Dineen will be Brent McKay, James McIndoe, Andrew’s son Josh Jones, and Michael Smart.

Jones is out for the win and is planning to take the race right up to the likes of the Carkeek 43, Scarlet Runner, skippered by David Sturge, and Chutzpah, the Reichel/Pugh 40, with the experienced Bruce Taylor in charge.

“We will be trying our best to give it a fair crack…if we can get some triple heading, and big powerful reaching conditions, then we should be quite quick,” said Jones.

Just Farr Love, is a 51-foot Bruce Farr designed fast cruiser sailing mostly from the Tamar Yacht Club, and is skippered in this year’s race by owner, Scott Lovell, who was raised in the far North West of Tasmania with the waters off Three Hummock Island his sailing backyard.

Just Farr Love has a long cruising history and while a relative newcomer to offshore racing, a win on performance handicap overall and in Division 2 in last year’s Rolex Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race has sparked a fire in Lovell who is keen to add the Rudder Cup Race to their preparation before the Boxing Day race to Hobart.

Lovell and his crew have a score to settle with the Rudder Cup after last year’s disappointment.

“We entered last year but we had some dramas with our propellers heading over Bass Strait and as we got closer to the entry to Port Phillip, neither the weather or the tides were in our favour, and because the propellers weren’t working on the boat, we were advised by the Marine Police not to make the entrance, so we had to withdraw before we started.

“This year, we don’t want this race to beat us,” said Lovell.

Just Farr Love isn’t a lightweight boat and performs at her best in heavier conditions and is sailing with eight crew including Brian Cottnam, Mandy Barden, Mitchell Ransom, Murat Djakic, Robert Brunning, Ross Smith, and Tim Freeman.

“We need a decent bit of breeze to get going, and if we can just get into that sweet spot and find our rhythm, we should go along quite nicely.

“We certainly won’t be leading the front of the pack, but if we get things right, and we get good conditions, we could do well,” said Lovell.

“We like to benchmark ourselves against similar boats, we are really talking about the cruiser/racer category rather than the all-out racers, so boats in the 40 foot plus range.

“Our boat is reasonably old now, but while the newer boats are a bit lighter, if we can hold our pace with some of them, we might do well.

“Our rig, compared to the others is quite small, we’ve got a heavy-duty cruising rig rather than a racing rig, so we are short on sail compared to the boat size in comparison to others,” said Lovell.

Lovell is delighted to be sailing with his seasoned crew who, in contrast to the youngsters on AdvantEdge, have recently come out of ‘retirement’ to get back into ocean racing.

“I think our youngest crew is 45 years old, quite a few of our sailors have done a lot of ocean racing including the Westcoaster, 15 or 20 years ago, and had a long break, so some have come out of ‘retirement’ to race.

“We draw straws as to who is on the foredeck because none of us really want to be up there,” said Lovell.

Lovell sounds like he’s also prioritising luxury and comfort over hard racing in this year’s race.

“We have a hard dodger which gives us a comfortable ride, especially when you are beating into the weather; we don’t sit on the rail, and we are in two minds whether to put the coffee machine onboard or not.

“We are really about enjoying the ride, the crew, and just achieving these things, we are all just that little bit older now, we don’t have quite the same ‘we must win’ mentality,” said Lovell.

The 195 nautical mile Melbourne to Devonport race forms part of the ORCV Offshore Championship and is open to yachts racing fully crewed, “autohelm plus 4” or double-handed.

Nearly 30 boats have registered for the 2025 Rudder Cup, Australia’s oldest ocean race, which starts at 2:30 pm on Friday the 31st of October 2025.

Entries have been received from Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.

For more information on the race, go to: www.orcv.org.au/devonport.

by Jane Austin/ORCV media