80th ROLEX Sydney Hobart Yacht Race

80th ROLEX Sydney Hobart Yacht Race

Min River’s historic Rolex Sydney Hobart Overall victory


Home2025Min River’s historic Rolex Sydney Hobart Overall victory



Min River has been declared the Overall winner of the 2025 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, making her owner, Jiang Lin, the first woman to ever win the race and together with her co-skipper Alexis Loison they also became the first double handed crew to lay claim to the famous Tattersall Cup – a day of historic significance in the race.
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31 December 2025 at 2:53 pm


After a protracted battle with seven other double-handed boats and two fully crewed yachts, Love & War and Midnight Rambler in the last 36 hours of Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s famous race, it became apparent that it was between BNC - my::Net/LEON and Min River.

Lin and Loison were originally sitting in second place Overall. However, following a protest by the Race Committee against the double handed crew on BNC - my::Net/LEON (Michel Quintin/Yann Rigal) for a rule infringement, the latter was penalised one hour and five minutes by the International Jury. That result delivered the Overall victory to Min River.

BNC - my::Net/LEON’s time penalty dropped her to second place.

Sixty-year-old Jiang Lin admitted this afternoon, “I did not have hopes of winning. You think about all the 100-something boats, all the big boats and superb sailors out there. Not in my wildest dreams did I think this would come true for me. So no, I didn’t think about it. The best would be winning our division.” Which they did.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet. Maybe I wake up and say, ‘oh that was a dream.’”



Lin and Louison on their way to the finish - Credit: CYCA | Salty Dingo

“It is special for me definitely, so I am very happy.”

Loison added: “No, I did not expect to win, but we had a good strategy of pushing very hard. We had a lot of sail changes.”

“Many times,” Jiang Lin added.



Min River on her way to claim the first ever double-handed Overall Victory - Credit: ROLEX | Kurt Arrigo

Loison: “We forgot to sleep. It’s crazy to win, we are proud of ourselves.”

On displacing BNC - my::Net/LEON as the Overall winner, did Jiang and Loison have mixed feelings? “No. It is what it is – we are still the winners,” Jiang Lin said.

“We are having dinner together as a group tomorrow (with all the double-handed competitors). I already have confirmed I am coming. So we will have a good drink and celebrations.”

Like all other competitors in the race, the double handed duo found parts of the race quite difficult. Loison said, “Very hard first two days and last night. And a lot of good memories at the end. At the finish, we knew we were very close to very good results.”

Jiang Lin had been racing in the twilight and Sunday summer series at Balmain Sailing Club, which in 2015 named her ‘Most Improved Keelboat Sailor’, just three years after she began sailing – as a 47-year-old.

Jiang Lin has always chosen top co-skippers, French and Australians to race with, in Australia and overseas. Asked if she had already signed Loison up for the 2026 Rolex Sydney Hobart, Jiang Lin laughed and said, “Umm, maybe.”



Min River moored in Constitution Dock - Credit: CYCA | Salty Dingo



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How the Brits won SailGP: Dylan Fletcher’s full debrief - Yachting World

How the Brits won SailGP: Dylan Fletcher’s full debrief - Yachting World



How the Brits won SailGP: Dylan Fletcher’s full debrief


Yachting World · a day ago
by Helen Fretter · Races


Last weekend the Emirates GBR Team became SailGP season champions. Helmsman Dylan Fletcher talks exclusively to Helen Fretter to explain how

“If someone gave you a lottery ticket with a 33 % chance of winning $2m, you’d snap their hand off!” said Dylan Fletcher, helmsman of the Emirates Great Britain Team during last weekend’s SailGP Grand Finale in Abu Dhabi.

And certainly for a lot of the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix Season Grand Final – an event title which took almost as long to say as it took the F50s to get to the top mark – luck seemed to be playing a significant part in results, with zephyr-light winds and exceptionally short course plunging the season’s most consistent performers down the leaderboard.

At first watch even the final looked to come down to a ‘Hail Mary’ decision when the British team, who were third – or last – off the line split from the leading duo of Australia’s Bonds Flying Roos and New Zealand Black Foils to hook into a convenient shift and come out on top.

But, as Fletcher explains, that’s not quite how it happened.

Mikaela Shiffrin keeps World Cup slalom streak going but slams course conditions in night race | CBC Sports

Mikaela Shiffrin keeps World Cup slalom streak going but slams course conditions in night race | CBC Sports

Mikaela Shiffrin keeps World Cup slalom streak going but slams course conditions in night race
American skier extends win streak in discipline to 6 races
The Associated Press · Posted: Dec 28, 2025 11:04 AM PST | Last Updated: December 28


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American Mikaela Shiffrin, winner of an alpine ski, women's World Cup slalom, poses with the trophy in Semmering, Austria, on Dec. 28. (Marco Tacca/The Associated Press)

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After dominating the first four World Cup slaloms this season, Mikaela Shiffrin has only just managed to keep her winning streak intact ahead of the 2026 Olympics.

Not that Sunday's night slalom in Austria, the final event of the calendar year, could make the American ski star particularly happy.

Shiffrin came from half a second behind in the first run to edge out world champion Camille Rast of Switzerland, but then slammed race conditions on the Panorama course.
WATCH | Mikaela Shiffrin wins 6th straight World Cup slalom, edges Camille Rast in Austria :




Mikaela Shiffrin wins 6th straight World Cup slalom, edges Camille Rast in Austria
December 28|
Duration3:08The American skier had the fastest second run (53.58) of the day and made up more than a half-second on Camille Rast, who led after the opening run.


"I have to say this: It was not safe to ski for the girls," Shiffrin told Austrian TV. "For me, don't question it, bib 4 on the first run, it's not a problem, right. But for these women who were starting bib 13, 15, 18, in the 60s (start numbers), this is not OK."

The recent mild weather affected the course and organizers attempted to harden its surface by injecting water and salt beforehand.

However, the surface broke on an increasing number of spots during the afternoon run, which started at 2:15 p.m.

Conditions then slightly improved for the evening session 3 1/2 hours later, when temperatures dropped.

"It was a very challenging and distracting day," Shiffrin said. "My understanding is that there were no big injuries, but the way the surface was breaking ... The second run was a bit better, for sure, but I am frustrated with how that went for these women."

Only 40 out of the 77 starters completed the first session and a deficit of 5.94 seconds was still enough to qualify for the final run.

"It should be a good show, but it should be something that the athletes want to do and are not terrified on the start, looking at the first two turns with these enormous holes. There is a way to do it better, and that's that," Shiffrin said.

Doing it better is certainly what Shiffrin did in her final run.

The American was fourth, more than half a second off the pace, in the opening session on the rapidly deteriorating course, but posted the fastest time in the evening to beat first-run leader Rast, who finished 0.09 seconds behind. Italian-born prodigy Lara Colturi, 19, who competes for Albania, was 0.57 back in third.

"It was a really hard day today, tough conditions, a really big fight, and the pressure's on. And oh, I did my best, best possible run," Shiffrin said in a course-side interview after her record-extending 106th career win.


"It didn't feel like good. I didn't expect to come down with the green light. It's been one of those days, it's like: `Let's refocus and be positive and try'."

Five wins in a row to begin a season matches Shiffrin's personal best start from 2018-19.
Perfect in slalom, Mikaela Shiffrin has big plans ahead of OlympicsMikaela Shiffrin wins 4th straight slalom of Olympic season as rivals falter in night race

She won the final race of last season and then dominated the first four slaloms of the current Olympic campaign, winning them by an average margin of 1.5 seconds, before adding Sunday's narrow win.

In the first run, Shiffrin was one-hundredth of a second ahead of Rast halfway down the course but lost considerable time on the Swiss racer in the bottom section.

"It's a pretty tough one. I think, probably, a little bit like overskiing, too round, compared to what's possible," said Shiffrin, who was the 2014 Olympic champion and holds the women's World Cup record of 69 slalom victories.

She extended her lead over second-placed Colturi to 220 points in the slalom standings. The World Cup schedule includes three more slaloms in January before the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, and then two in March. A race win is worth 100 points.
Top Canadian

Laurence St-Germain of Saint-Ferreol-les-Neiges, Que., was the top Canadian, finishing 12th.

Croatia's Zrinka Ljutic, who won the race last season and went on to take the slalom globe, was a massive 3.75 seconds behind in eighth.

Shiffrin's teammate Paula Moltzan was seventh after the first run but straddled a gate in the second, a day after she crashed and fell on her back and head in a giant slalom on the same hill. That race was won by Austria's Julia Scheib, who does not compete in slalom.

The women's World Cup travels to Slovenia for a giant and slalom in Kranjska Gora next weekend.

 

 0 hurricanes made landfall in the US

Hurricane Erin caused high tides along the East Coast in August, but did not make landfall. Charly Triballeau/Getty Images

The 2025 North Atlantic hurricane season is officially over, and for the first time since 2015, not a single one made landfall in the US. There was still plenty of activity, however: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had predicted an above-average season of activity for 2025. The agency said that the season fell within the ranges it predicted for “named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes.” Between June 1 and November 30, the Atlantic basin produced 13 named storms and five hurricanes. Three of the hurricanes reached Category 5 status, a tie for the second-most on record. While the US got off scot-free on the hurricanes-making-landfall front this year, other nations were nowhere near as lucky. Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica as a Category 5 and brought significant devastation at the end of October before moving on and hitting Cuba as a major hurricane. Melissa ranks in the top three strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall in the Atlantic basin, according to The Weather Channel.

Recognizing a lifetime of achievement

 Recognizing a lifetime of achievement

The Pindar Lifetime Achievement Award for 2025, presented by the International Association of Cape Horners, goes to Sir Robin Knox-Johnston KB CBE RD. Sir Robin, who lives in Portsmouth UK, has been inspiring sailors the world over since becoming the first person to sail solo non-stop around the world aboard his treasured 32ft 6in traditional wooden yacht Suhaili back in 1968-69.

He is still inspiring newcomers. The Clipper Round the World yacht race has introduced some 20,000 amateur crews to the sport since he co-founded the event in 1996. And this year, at the age of 86, he led old friends on a cruise to Greenland and back.

One circumnavigation was never going to be enough. Sir Robin has completed three, and also competed in the 1977-78 Whitbread Round the World Race, skippering the British maxi yacht Heath’s Condor to elapsed time victories on legs 2 and 4. - Full report

Extraordinary boats: Ragtime – The 60-year-old yacht that launched a genre is back on the water

Extraordinary boats: Ragtime – The 60-year-old yacht that launched a genre is back on the water

Extraordinary boats: Ragtime – The 60-year-old yacht that launched a genre is back on the water

Yachting World
November 27, 2025
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The painstaking two-year refit of Ragtime is complete, securing the legacy of the ultra-light displacement boat that stunned the racing world

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The restoration of an iconic racer, one that was so ground-breaking it helped create a whole genre of yachts, is no small undertaking. But that’s exactly what inadvertent owner Tina Roberts ploughed into headfirst with the two-year refit of Ragtime, the original ultra-light displacement boat from the land of the long white cloud.

Designed and built single-handedly by New Zealander John Spencer for industrialist and racing driver Sir Tom Clark in 1963/64, Ragtime was launched as Infidel and was reputedly the largest hard chine plywood keelboat in the world.

Infidel immediately upset the racing establishment, beating the Tercel brothers’ 60-footer Ranger, which had won nearly every race it sailed over three decades. So comprehensive were Infidel’s victories that it was reportedly banned from competing in regattas in New Zealand. It was also barred from entering the 1967 Sydney-Hobart Race because it was deemed too light and not seaworthy enough for the notoriously treacherous 630-mile race.


Under spinnaker, Ragtime’s low freeboard becomes evident. Photo: Steve Jost Photography
California dreaming

With nowhere to turn Infidel wound up where many wayward souls are welcomed: California. A pair of businessmen in Newport Beach purchased the yacht for $25,000 in 1969 and renamed it Ragtime.

The yacht changed owners again in 1971 and, 10 years after her launch, benchmarked the performance of the ultra-light displacement genre by defeating the 73-footer Windward Passage in the epic 1973 Transpac Race, winning the Barn Door Trophy for first-to-finish by a mere 4m 31s over the 2,225-mile course. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, that’s an interesting boat. That’s cool,’” recalls California yacht designer Alan Andrews of his first sighting of Ragtime in the early 1970s.

“Ragtime was a big boat, most of the racing at the time was in 30- to 40-footers. She was clearly very fast, at least downwind, with the hard chines as well.”


The plywood-built hull features hard chines that run its entire length. Photo: Steve Jost Photography

Ragtime is a simple but eye-catching yacht design, with a sheerline that drops noticeably from bow to stern. The hull is constructed from marine plywood; the cabin house, which stands tall of the sheerline, of kauri wood, and when launched it displaced 10 tons. The original LOA of 61ft 8in was determined in large part because that was the amount of floor space in Spencer’s shop, yet still the bow and stern hung outside the sliding doors on either end of the shed.

The boat hull features hard chines running the waterline length of 50ft 8in. In its original form Ragtime lacked an engine and was tiller steered, two features that were changed after she reached American shores.

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Demanding first night for Sydney Hobart >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News: Providing sailing news for sailors

Demanding first night for Sydney Hobart >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News: Providing sailing news for sailors

Demanding first night for Sydney Hobart

Published on December 24th, 2025

Strong southerlies and big ocean swell are shaping as the defining features of the opening stages of the 2025 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race which starts December 26. Given that the 628nm course is to the south, this equats to a demanding first night at sea.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has warned crews to prepare for a sharp transition from Sydney Harbour sailing to full ocean conditions almost immediately after the start.

BOM meteorologist Edward Townsend-Medlock outlined a forecast dominated by a slow-moving high-pressure system sitting over Tasmania. While the system brings settled weather overall, its positioning puts the fleet on its eastern flank for the opening phase of the race — a scenario that delivers firm southerly winds and a long, mature swell rolling straight up the New South Wales coast.

At the start cannon, conditions inside Sydney Harbour are expected to be relatively orderly but brisk. Southerly winds in the 15–20 knot range will funnel through the harbor, enough to keep crews alert during the congested spinnaker start without creating the chaotic conditions seen in some recent editions.