The Melbourne to Hobart Westcoaster - an iconic Australian ocean race
2024 Melbourne to Hobart fleet / Photo by Al Dillon
In 1966, Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston released the upbeat Motown R&B duet, It Takes Two (Baby), a catchy and optimistic pop track which was about needing two people to make a dream come true!
This song, on reflection, could easily have been the ear worm of Melbourne’s Stan Gibson and Hobart’s Dr Joe Cannon, and in fact many other ocean racing collaborators, as they joined forces a few years later to bring the concept of an ocean race from Melbourne to Hobart to fruition.
The Melbourne to Hobart is a prestigious and challenging blue-water ocean classic often described as one of the world’s best ocean races, with strategy, skill, safety, and seamanship core ingredients of a race that continues to stand the test of time.
Now in its 54th year, more than 960 yachts and over 7,500 crew have competed in the Melbourne to Hobart Westcoaster without major incident, with a signature yellow cap awarded to every competitor that successfully completes the race.
The Westcoaster, as the race is affectionately referred to these days, was originally intended as a challenging alternative race for yachties from Victoria and South Australia who wanted to be in Hobart for the post-Christmas summer sailing celebrations but weren’t too keen on getting there via Sydney.
As is often the case with anything new, there were sceptics, with the fearsome reputation of Tasmania’s West Coast often cited as a likely barrier to the success of the race.
The determined yachting visionaries also received lukewarm interest from the then Cruising Yacht Club of Victoria which was down on funds at the time.
But as most successful sailors will attest, proper preparation and planning is key, so Gibson took it upon himself to complete a detailed analysis of the weather patterns along the West Coast to help silence the critics.
Armed with this information, Gibson, Cannon, and Victorian yachtsman Peter Riddle were able to convince the doubters that a safe race was possible and were quickly supported by Donald Trescowthick (later Sir Donald Trescowthick, KBE) in their efforts.
Trescowthick, a consummate businessman, immediately saw the value and benefits of the race to not only sailors, but to the state of Victoria, and quickly set up the organising committee, sponsored the event and donated the Heemskerk Perpetual Trophy, while enlisting the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron, the ORCV and the Derwent Sailing Squadron in Hobart to oversee the sailing.
When the new Melbourne to Hobart blue water classic was announced to the public, there were still calls for the race to be abandoned in the interests of safety, but fortunately, they fell on deaf ears.
The first race was held in 1972 with 15 boats making the start line, strong sponsorship in place, and a valuable array of trophies from Australian artist Pro Hart commissioned for the major placegetters in the race.
SV Mary Blair during the 1972 Westcoaster
Peter Riddle sailed Mary Blair, a Hood designed 41-footer, to take the very first line honours victory in a time of 2 days, 16 hours, 19 mins and 7 seconds, while John Marion’s Rhodes designed 30-footer, Ailsa, won the Heemskerk Perpetual Trophy for the fastest boat on IOR handicap on corrected time, both inking their place in the history books.
Also making the trek across Bass Strait, down the West Coast and into the Southern Ocean in this first race was Geoff Wood’s 55-foot, three-masted schooner, Ile Ola.
Built by Geoff and his wife, and a group of friends, the Herreshoff H55 Marco Polo boat was designed for world cruising and was launched in 1953, complete with three two-berth state rooms, a modern bathroom, galley with built in cabinets, hot and cold water and a piano onboardi.
Incredibly, Ile Ola went on to race in fifteen Melbourne to Hobart races and logged over 510,000 sea miles, and to this day, Geoff Woods, who died in 1992, is considered a true legend of the race.
The rest of the 70s brought us colour TV, a Helsal race record, and the beginning of the dominance of Jim and Neil Searle, with the father-son combination securing four back-to-back wins on their Farr 1104, Hot Prospect, and then Relentless in 1980.
Tasmanian entries featured strongly in the 80s with Hobart’s Reg Escott sailing his S&S 34 Solandra to victory over the line and on IOR handicap in 1982, and again on IOR in 1985, with Tasmania’s Drew Murray making it a Tassie double when his all-steel Bollard 36, Trident III, won on performance handicap in the same year.
The 1990 race, which saw the first double-handed entry, was all about Tasmania’s world-renowned photographer Richard Bennett’s incredible photo of Grant Wharington’s Inglis 47, Wild Thing, captured three quarters out of the water surfing down 10 metre waves at speeds in excess of 30 knots.
The image was voted Yachting International picture of the year, and the intensity of the Melbourne to Hobart Yacht Race was splashed in magazines and newsstands across the world.
Yoko racing Melbourne to Hobart
The Westcoaster has had its fair share of gun boats and sailors, but the contribution of Robin Hewitt OAM and Yoko, a 50-foot Ben Lexcen designed, steel-hulled sloop who completed 35 consecutive races, is unsurpassed.
Hewitt, a former ORCV Commodore and skipper of Yoko, celebrated the 1991 Westcoaster in style, with Yoko notching up her first handicap win in the performance division and beating line honours winner, Wild Thing, by four hours and thirty minutes on corrected time.
Hewitt and his crew proceeded to organise a ‘Big Day Out’ party for over 250 people on a barge to celebrate their success.
Hewitt’s impact on the race and on sailing in general, was acknowledged in 2023 when he was awarded an OAM for his services to yachting.
Alien racing the 2025 Melbourne to Hobart / Photo Al Dillon
Over the last 20-plus years, another stand-out performer has been Justin Brenan and the crew of Alien.
The Lidgard 36, designed specifically for racing in tough conditions like the Southern Ocean, has a loyal and very experienced crew, with Brenan winning the Westcoaster overall on five separate occasions (including the 2009 optional East Coast race), along with multiple divisional wins along the way.
“Ocean racing is a thinking person’s sport – you have to think before you act, understand what you are doing and why, and just have your wits about you,” said Brenan.
As sailors get their entries in and finalise their crews for this year’s race, some first-timers may be feeling a combined sense of excitement and trepidation, but it is worth reflecting upon sailing conditions down the West Coast of Tasmania over the years.
It goes without saying that the weather across Bass Strait and down Tasmania’s rugged West Coast can be challenging, with race reports over the years occasionally noting 50 to 60 knot winds for periods of three to four hours as fronts pass through, but in most years, race retirements have been limited to only one or two boats.
Race history tells us that there were four years where one third or more of the fleet had not been able to finish, attributable, for the most part, to a lack of wind down the remote Tasmanian coastline rather than too much.
In the 1998 Westcoaster, eight of the twenty-five entries withdrew before the start, no doubt influenced by the terrible conditions hitting the Sydney fleet, however fifteen of the seventeen starters successfully finished the race.
Sailors who choose to enter the Westcoaster are frequently drawn to the strategic demands of the race, especially the tactical choices needed when the wind is light, and the currents are a prime consideration.
The race starts with a 125 nm passage across Bass Strait, between the Australian mainland and Tasmania, with a key navigation decision whether to take the boat to the East or West of King Island, depending upon the wind, tide, and impending weather.
The most challenging year in the history of the race was the 1999 Westcoaster, when Cadibarra 7, skippered by Nigel Jones, was the only boat in the 20-boat fleet to finish the race. The race started in a light 10-15 knot breeze, but an approaching low-pressure system signalled difficult conditions ahead.
Jones made the strategic decision to sail to the west of King Island to avoid the rough conditions which were expected to hit the fleet in the gap between King Island and the North West of mainland Tasmania.
The boat was west of King Island by morning when the wind shifted to the south and continued to strengthen throughout the day, reaching 30 knots by nightfall and gusting to 45 knots by the morning of the third day of racing.
Cadibarra 7 contended with five metre seas and wind that was bang on the nose, making conditions particularly unpleasant for the crew. It took 40 hours for the worst of the low-pressure system to pass and the winds to abate and shift to the west.
During the race, the chart plotter went, the stove fell apart and a runner block exploded putting the mast at risk, but the team agreed to plough on.
The crew, relieved to have made it down the coastline in one piece, rounded South West Cape by lunch time on the 30th, popped a spinnaker, tucked into their first hot meal for a while, and made the dash across the bottom of Tasmania, arriving in Hobart at 2 am on the 31st of December after three days and 14 hours at sea.
Nigel at the centre holding the sign for the 25th Westcoaster in 1996
Ten years later, Jones reflected on the race with Helsal crew member and Sail World editor John Curnow, offering the following thoughts on why they managed to pull of a feat that no other crew could manage.
“In hindsight, we believed the main reasons we finished the race, despite the atrocious conditions, were having a very well-designed and built boat; going West of King Island; having three reef points in the main and having the third reef moused with a continuous mouse system; having a Number Four or large storm jib; changing to a three watch system to preserve the crew; and having sufficient crew with good stomachs to keep the boat going,” said Jones.ii
Australian sailors are lucky to have several ocean and offshore events on offer each year, so why choose the Melbourne to Hobart?
The Westcoaster offers tactical challenges, especially around King Island, stunning scenery along the remote West and South Coasts of Tasmania, dramatic cliffs, abundant birds and sea life, and then there’s the raw power of the brooding Southern Ocean and Maatsuyker Island, before the celebration on the docks in Hobart.
If variety is the spice of life, isn’t it time you earned your yellow cap?
The 435 nautical mile race starts at 11:30 am (AEST) on Sunday the 27th of December 2026. Early bird entries for the 2026 Melbourne to Hobart close on Monday the 9th of November, with final entries closing on Monday the 23rd of November 2026.
To enter and to read more about the history of the race, go to: https://www.orcv.org.au/hobart
