As I knew from experience, having completed the contest once before, the 628-nautical-mile Sydney-Hobart Race is one of offshore sailing’s most grueling tests of sailors and boats. Likewise, the annual Boxing Day start in Sydney Harbour is one of yachting’s great spectacles, broadcast live on national television the day after Christmas. The 2025 edition, the 80th running of the event, set forth with an unusually dire forecast, even for a Hobart race: extremely stiff southerlies for the first 48 hours, with enormous seas whipped up by the opposing East Australian Current streaming down the coast.
At the pre-race presser, event chairman Lee Goddard summed it up succinctly: “It’s going to be cold, wet and bumpy. People will get seasick.” He was prescient. Before all was said and done, of the 138 starters, 35 would retire, the majority in the first roiled hours.
In the best of circumstances, I would approach a Sydney to Hobart run with genuine trepidation (I’d previously attempted the voyage three times, completing it twice, with a broken rudder thrown in as a reality check). But as I set out again in December, there was one simple reason why my mouth was dryer and nerves a bit more frayed than usual. After all, sailboats I understand. But this trip would be my first offshore passage on a motoryacht.
An old colleague, George Sass, Jr.—the former editor of Yachting magazine—these days does marketing for Palm Beach Motor Yachts, an Australian-based builder of high-end powerboats founded by Aussie sailing legend Mark Richards, who was doing the Hobart race on his 100-foot Palm Beach XI (formerly Wild Oats XI). As a branding exercise, a ritzy Palm Beach 65 sedan called Palm Beach XII, skippered by another excellent local sailor, Dave “Tower” Sampson, would be shadowing the racing fleet and posting social media along the way. George’s invitation to join the crew came with a nice carrot, as I could spend the holidays with my Aussie-based daughter.
Win-win, right? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
On an unseasonably chilled, gray Aussie summer afternoon, the race commenced with its usual fanfare. All was rather pleasant aboard PB XII until we exited the iconic Sydney Heads at the mouth of the confined harbor, following the big maxis, and entered the fray. The biblical seas swept past and over us. PB XII was basically a hybrid vessel: half yacht, half submarine. Such pounding, I’d never heard or felt before.
A hundred miles down the coast, we bailed out for a few hours of respite in the splendidly protected waters of Jervis Bay. Tower briefly considered turning around, but at 0600 we were back at it. Friends, never underestimate the stubbornness or pain threshold of a determined Aussie sailor.
Day two was a manic dash down the coast of New South Wales before ducking into the fishing town of Eden for further relief. The silver lining, despite my loose fillings, was our inshore heading out of the current, which afforded a fine view of the stunning shoreline. Somehow, thanks to Starlink, my crewmates were more fixated on the test cricket match with England.
As day three got underway at 0100, Tower promised changing weather and more benign conditions, but the first few hours were the usual dog’s breakfast. However, as we crossed Bass Strait after dawn, the skies cleared and the breeze did eventually swing north while we closed on the welcome coast of Tasmania. If only we had a spinnaker.
The highlight of the entire devilish journey was passing the stunning rock spires of Organ Pipes National Park just before sunset in perfect, glorious light. Tower launched a drone and captured some spectacular images before we made our way up the final stretch of the Derwent River and cruised into the blinking lights of downtown Hobart. Neptune be praised.
We never did achieve our pre-voyage mission of catching Palm Beach XI on the racecourse, but when we tied up alongside, the party was still raging and the first beer was tasty indeed. Just bloody getting there, as far as I was concerned, was victory.
At the end of it, I was reminded of two things, the first being the title of an essay by the late, great David Foster Wallace: “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” But I think my feelings were best summed up by that old bumper sticker: I’d Rather Be Sailing.
