Sydney-Hobart sailing, Master Lock Comanche wins 2025 edition

Maurizio Bertera

December 28 – 11.40am – MILANO

There were no dramas like a year ago but the 80th edition of the Rolex Sydney to Hobart – the classic of the Southern Seas – was tougher than expected. After the postcard start (light breeze, gennaker and zero tails on the bow, thousands of spectators on the ground and on the accompanying boats), an intense wind arrived from the southern quadrants, around 25-30 knots. But it was above all the short and steep sea that created problems for the large fleet: 33 retreated out of the 128 that started, confirming that the 628 miles of the Bluewater Classic they should never be taken lightly. Among the boats out of the race, the most illustrious was Wild Thing, stopped by a broken mainsail block. In reality, the crew had repaired it but the experienced skipper Grant Wharington preferred to retire: “I don’t like makeshift repairs anymore. And when you have a four million dollar mast in the air on the deck, you analyze things more carefully than you might have done in the past”, he explained as soon as he returned to Sydney. Once one of the 100-footers left the scene, the battle for success in real time involved three other maxis and the American 27-meter Lucky.

upwind

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It was an almost entirely upwind race, with the tacking along the Tasmanian coast mixing up the cards, allowing SHK Scallywag to enter the predictable duel between Law Connect, winner of the last two editions, and Master Lock Comanche. At midnight in Italy, the three 100-footers were separated by just one mile and on the approach to Hobart it seemed like we were witnessing an America’s Cup match-race and not an offshore race. A perfect final tack allowed Master Lock Comanche to fly to the finish line and take the Line Honors (real-time success) in the late southern afternoon. The proof of how good the sailors led by Matt Allen and James Mayo were is that after a ‘visual’ battle Law Connect and SHK Scallywag finished 47 and 71 minutes respectively. Confirming that it was a slow edition, the winner’s time (2 days, 5 hours and 3 minutes) is very far from the record set by Master Lock Comanche in 2017: one day, 9 hours and 15 minutes.

the winners

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Master Lock Comanche is a 30 metre, launched in 2014 and designed by Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot in collaboration with Guillaume Verdier, who is the designer in charge of the Hypersail Ferrari project. It is not considered a ‘simple’ 100-footer due to the particular sail plan moved further aft than many similar maxi boats, a solution which last year led to its withdrawal due to problems with the mainsail. The choice of keel was also long and difficult: initially it was opted for a lifting keel but, given the number of miles that Comanche would have covered, in the end the choice fell on the canting keel. Allen and Mayo were able to count on an excellent crew including the Englishman Andy Green (navigator but also one of the most well-known commentators on the international circuit), the Australian sailing legend Iain Murray and his compatriot Adam Beashel who twice contested the America’s Cup with his “cousins” of Emirates Team New Zealand. As for the Tattersall Cup – the trophy for the best hull on corrected time – it is almost impossible for it to escape again from Sam Haynes’ Celestial V70 which at the 10 Italian mark has a 280 mile lead over Min River. This is Giovanni Soldini’s former Maserati 70 which took part in the Sydney to Hobart ten years ago, finishing fourth overall.