Sydney Hobart Yacht Race: Six Hundred and Thirty Miles Starting on Boxing Day

About the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race

The Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is an annual ocean race hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, starting in Sydney on Boxing Day and finishing in Hobart, Tasmania. The distance is approximately 630 nautical miles. It is run in conjunction with the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania and is widely considered one of the most difficult yacht races in the world.

It began almost by accident. Peter Luke and a group of friends who had formed a club for people who preferred cruising to racing were planning a passage south, until a visiting British Royal Navy officer, Captain John Illingworth, suggested they make a race of it. The first race was held in 1945, and the 2025 edition was the eightieth. Along with the Newport-Bermuda Race and the Fastnet, it is one of the three classic offshore races, each run over roughly the same distance.

Two Prizes, Two Different Races

There are effectively two competitions taking place at once, and understanding the difference explains most of what you will read about the race. Line honours goes to the first boat across the finish line, which is almost always the newest and largest maxi yacht in the fleet, and it is the result that dominates the news coverage. Wild Oats XI holds the record with nine line-honours victories.

Australia’s foremost offshore prize, however, is the Tattersall Cup, awarded to the overall winner on handicap — calculated from the length, shape, weight, and sail dimensions of each yacht. A well-sailed boat half the size of the leaders can take it, and frequently does.

Where to Start

• Be on the harbour for the start — the Boxing Day departure through Sydney Heads is the spectacle, and it happens once
• Decide early whether you want to sail it — a berth requires qualification, not simply availability
• Plan for Hobart as well as Sydney — the finish is a small city that fills completely for the week
• Take the whole holiday period — the race sits inside the Australian summer and the country is on leave

Why Bass Strait Decides It

The first hours are a spinnaker run down the New South Wales coast in front of a large spectator fleet. What follows is not. Bass Strait, the stretch of water between the mainland and Tasmania, is shallow relative to the oceans either side of it, which turns a southerly change into a short, steep, and genuinely dangerous sea very quickly.

The race has paid for that. A storm during the 1998 edition caused loss of life and led to substantial changes in race management, safety requirements, and weather forecasting for the event. Every crew that enters now does so under a far more demanding qualification and equipment regime than existed then, and the race is treated by experienced offshore sailors as a serious undertaking rather than a holiday fixture.

How We Help

• Spectator boats positioned on the harbour for the start, which is the single best vantage point of the year in Sydney
• Berths aboard competing yachts for qualified crew, and introductions where a place genuinely exists
• Accommodation in Sydney over the holiday and in Hobart for the finish, both of which need booking a year out
• Tables across a period when both cities are at capacity, via our Fine Dining & Nightlife service
• Private aviation between Sydney and Hobart, timed to the leaders rather than to the airline schedule

Our sailing clients treat the year as a circuit. The Sydney Hobart closes it on Boxing Day, Cowes Week opens August on the Solent, and Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez ends the Mediterranean season. Those travelling to Australia for the season often arrive in time for the Melbourne Cup in November. Corporate hosting on the harbour runs through our Business Concierge team.

The Finish in Hobart

The other half of this race is the arrival. Boats come up the Derwent at every hour of the day and night for several days, and the waterfront at Constitution Dock becomes the centre of the event as each crew ties up and walks ashore. It is one of the few finishes in sport that is genuinely worth travelling to see, precisely because it is unscheduled.

Constitution Dock is the arrival point for the fleet and usually sees the celebrations, with the Customs House Hotel a long-standing favourite among Sydney Hobart crews. Hobart is a small city with a good harbour and an outstanding food and wine culture in the valleys around it, and the week between the finish and the new year is the busiest of its calendar.

For anyone watching rather than sailing, the sensible arrangement is the start on the harbour in Sydney, two days ashore, and then a flight south to be in Hobart when the fleet arrives. That covers both ends of the race and skips the part that is genuinely unpleasant.