Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race 2025: Comanche takes line honours in 80th race as 33 retire

By 4pm today, 33 yachts had retired and 75 of the 95 remaining yachts racing had yet to pass half way. It’s time I join the retirees, but we’ll be keeping an eye on the fleet as they cross the Bass Strait and as the overall winner is declared.

Thank you for joining us and good night.

8.32pm on Dec 28, 2025

Master Lock Comanche takes line honours

Master Lock Comanche took line honours in the 80th Sydney to Hobart on Sunday in conditions that forced more yachts to retire than the catastrophic weather of last year.

LawConnect owner and skipper Christian Beck was more confident in his rival’s abilities to win the race before it began, saying only a mistake from Comanche could give him his third consecutive win.

Master Lock Comanche claims line honours in the 80th Sydney to Hobart race.Getty Images

The luck went Beck’s way last year when Comanche’s main sail tore in a night of wild weather that claimed two lives and forced a man overboard. Comanche retired alongside 32 other yachts and like many returning, this year was supposed to be her redemption.

Comanche sailed out of Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day behind LawConnect but raced in front about five hours after the race began. It was only briefly for a few hours on the final day, when SHK Scallywag 100 found her way in front of Comanche down the Tasmanian coast, that her lead looked in doubt.

It would have been a fairytale win for Scallywag skipper David Witt, who has twice promised he would not return to the Sydney to Hobart, having entered 27 times and never won. But just past midday, near Coles Bay on Tasmania’s coast, Comanche took the lead again and soon LawConnect pushed Scallywag back to third.

On LawConnect, bad luck determined their fate. A ripped sail led to conversations about whether the yacht should retire. Had they decided to, it would have added to a list of 33 – including high-profile retirements Wild Thing 100, URM Group and Moneypenny.

Three yachts reported injuries to crew members’ ribs, two of them suspected to be broken. Three yachts retired with sailors suffering seasickness, which even affected the most comfortable in the water, including Olympian Ian Thorpe and his skipper on LawConnect.

LawConnect’s sail ripped on the final day of sailing. LawConnect

Two yachts retired after losing their life rafts and thus failing to comply with safety regulations. The oldest in the fleet, Maritimo Katwinchar, joined them, retiring to Eden despite having been a contender for overall honours, awarded to the fastest yacht after a handicap is applied.

Instead, by 6.30pm on Sunday, reigning overall winner Celestial V70 looked to be defending the Tattersall Cup.

Its skipper, Sam Haynes, called the conditions on the second night nasty.

“Hard, hard work,” he said. “Hard on the boat, hard on the crew. Felt like a very, very long time since we left Green Cape and then got ourselves across to finally be here on the Tasmanian coastline.”

And Beck, who had begun the race hopeful, even with a torn sail, had all but resigned to the second-place finish by 3pm.

“It’s starting to spread out a bit now,” he said. “We’re starting to get the winds that Comanche wanted.”

8.10pm on Dec 28, 2025

Lucky number four

Lucky, the American 88-ft yacht, has beat a 100ft yacht to the finish line. Palm Beach XI is still travelling down the Derwent while the Lucky crew will celebrate finishing the race at Constitution Dock.

The yacht, which calls the New York Yacht Club its home, was skippered by Bryon Ehrhart.

Lucky, owned and skippered by Byron Ehrhart.Rolex/Andrea Francolini

8.03pm on Dec 28, 2025

The tactic that won Comanche the line honours

“We just stuck to our game plan.”

That’s how Comanche skipper Matt Allen described the tactic that won took them from third place back to first.

“We wanted to really defend from inside the coast, closer to the coastline. That eventually worked for us. The breeze filled in from inshore and we got the lead back and then just extended it through the course of the day,” he said.

“There was just no wind where we were. The breeze just totally dissipated. The boats behind us basically caught up.”

And when there’s no wind? You find some.

The tactic that won Master Lock Comanche line honours and took it from third to first. RSHYR

“We just had to look,” co-skipper James Mayo said. “We’re all looking around and we just saw some puffs of wind developing on the shore and we were pretty close, we were about a mile out from the shore and we just thought that we have to see how that’s going to develop.

“And it started to develop and we started to move and we took off.”

7.51pm on Dec 28, 2025

Comanche’s win added to its others

Though we have to wait see who will be crowned the overall winner, Comanche’s name is returning once again to the list of Sydney to Hobart line honours winners.

7.42pm on Dec 28, 2025

SHK Scallywag 100 crosses the finish line

The view of Master Lock Comanche and LawConnect from HSK Scallywag 100 this morning. CYCA

It wasn’t to be for SHK Scallywag 100 skipper David Witt who, before the race, said this would be his last Sydney to Hobart after 27 attempts.

He led for several hours today and for a while it looked like he might upset the favourites Master Lock Comanche and LawConnect.

“We had a great lead during the race. It evaporated this morning,” Master Lock Comanche co-skipper Matt Allen said about Scallywag’s run.

“We had to effectively have a restart. We’ve never seen anything like that in a Sydney to Hobart race where all the boats were so close together ... on day two.”

7.31pm on Dec 28, 2025

The duo that got their redemption

After being forced to retire early last year, Master Lock Comanche skipper Matt Allen and co-skipper James Mayo made a deal over a cup of coffee that they would return to the race, but only if they did it together.

“Last year was very frustrating but we wanted to come back,” Allen said after the line honours victory this evening.

“James [Mayo] and I decided we would come back. We were only going to do it if both of us wanted to come back and we decided to do it and do it at 100 per cent.