Rolex Sydney Hobart Guide

The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is an offshore yacht race from Sydney Harbour to Hobart, Tasmania, organised by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA). The official race site and CYCA event pages publish the Notice of Race, entry information, tracking and results for each edition.

CYCA's 2026 Rolex Sydney Hobart event page states that the race starts on Saturday 26 December 2026 at 1:00 pm on Sydney Harbour.

The race runs from Sydney south to Hobart. Exact mileages, marks and class divisions are defined in the Notice of Race and sailing instructions for each year. Competitor information and entry hubs are published on rolexsydneyhobart.com.

Official tracking, news and results are published via rolexsydneyhobart.com and CYCA channels. Broadcasters and local media often cover the Boxing Day start on Sydney Harbour; finish coverage concentrates on Hobart and Constitution Dock.

Spectator access on the water in Sydney is controlled; official spectator products and exclusion zones are announced by the organiser for each year.

The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race began in 1945, when nine yachts left Sydney for what was first conceived as a cruise to Hobart. Competition among them turned the passage into a race; Captain John Illingworth’s Rani took both line honours and the handicap win, finishing on New Year’s Day 1946. The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia has organised the race ever since.

The course runs roughly 628 nautical miles from Sydney Harbour south along the New South Wales and Victorian coasts, across Bass Strait, round Tasman Island and up the River Derwent to Hobart. Boxing Day starts on Sydney Harbour have become one of Australia’s great sporting spectacles; Constitution Dock and the Hobart waterfront host the finish circus.

Line honours — first yacht to finish — and the Tattersall Cup for IRC overall victory are the two headline prizes. Wild Oats XI holds the record for most line-honours wins (nine). The elapsed-time race record is 1 day 9 hours 15 minutes 24 seconds, set by LDV Comanche in 2017. Freya (1963–65) remains the only yacht to win overall three years in succession; Ichi Ban later joined the multiple-overall club with wins in 2017, 2019 and 2021.

The race has also written harder chapters. The 1998 edition met catastrophic Bass Strait weather: of 115 starters, only 44 finished; six sailors died and 55 were taken from the water in a huge search-and-rescue operation. Safety rules, stability requirements and weather criteria were rewritten afterwards. The 2020 race was cancelled because of COVID-19. In 2025, Jiang Lin and Alexis Loison’s Min River became the first double-handed crew to win the Tattersall Cup since the double-handed division’s inclusion, and the first woman owner-skipper to win overall.

The Tattersall Cup goes to the IRC overall winner. Line honours is the first yacht to finish. The table below follows the CYCA / Rolex Sydney Hobart winners lists (1945–2023) with 2024–2025 results as announced by CYCA and the official race site.

Other Old Sea Dogs race hubs.