sydney to hobart yacht currawong

Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2024

Currawong (th).

Kathy Veel and Bridget Canham will return for their second Roles Sydney Hobart together in the two-handed division onboard Kathy’s 30ft Currawong.  The team won the hearts of the entire Australian sailing community when they battled their way down to Hobart in 2022, finishing last year’s race and disembarking at Constitution Dock just before midnight on New Years Eve to the cheers from thousands of spectators who celebrated their remarkable achievement of being the first all female two-handed entry in the race.  Nominated as a Finalist for the Australian Sailing NSW Sailing Awards, Kathy and Bridget really represent the true spirit of the race. 

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Last-placed retirees toast special New Year’s after finishing Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Races minutes before midnight

Retirees toast special New Year's after finishing Sydney to Hobart

Two retirees have toasted a special New Year’s after becoming the 100th and last boat to complete the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race - just minutes before midnight.

Kathy Veel, 70, and Bridget Canham, 62, set off on their near 50-year-old boat Currawong, the second smallest yacht in the fleet, on Boxing Day with one goal: finish the race in 2022.

WATCH IN THE VIDEO ABOVE: Retirees celebrate New Year’s in Tassie after finishing Sydney to Hobart.

And so it was that the women reached Hobart at 11.42pm on Saturday to the cheers of revellers on Constitution Dock.

Their history-making run was complete in five days, 10 hours, 42 minutes and six seconds - nearly four days after the line honours winner and 27 hours after the 99th finisher.

“The welcome was just unbelievable and to get here before the fireworks was just the best,” Canham said.

The co-skippers had stopped in Eden to avoid the worst of the weather but endeavoured not to retire.

“(I thought) ‘give me some rest and I’ll be happy to take whatever Bass Strait throws at us’,” Veel said.

Canham added: “We’ve been working our butts off to get here.”

Canham, a former nurse, and Veel, a former teacher, scrounged through crowdfunding to pull off the venture.

“I’ve had just such fun,” Canham said.

“The sailing was just brilliant. The boat behaved so well. It was magic.”

Veel said she is “so in love with the boat” that she bought last year and sailed from Melbourne to Sydney in the lead-up to the race.

“We’ve had lots of messages of encouragement and a little bit of a following on our Facebook page and crowdfunding,” she said.

“In the week before the race, the news got out and I’ve been getting messages from students I used to teach.”

The pair met sailing with Kerry Goudge’s all-female crew in the 1993 Sydney to Hobart, whose conditions are still regarded as some of the toughest in the race’s history.

Veel, a former teacher, had also sailed the 628 nautical mile bluewater classic in 1989 on Belles Ranger, the second all-female crew in the event’s history.

Controversial catch sparks huge BBL debate.

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Celestial crowned overall winner of Sydney to Hobart yacht race

Celestial skipper and owner sam haynes said he wasn't expecting to claim the title, labelling the feat a "lifetime achievement"..

Celestial skipper Sam Haynes says he is pleasantly surprised to win the title, adding that his goal had been to be "competitive" and deliver the best result possible. Source: Getty / Brett Hemmings

• Celestial has been named the overall winner in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.
• Skipper Sam Haynes says the win is particularly special after the yacht's experience last year.
• Rough seas have forced more vessels to retire.

Redemption after heartache in 2021

Rough seas force more vessels to retire

Race record in sight for leaders in Sydney to Hobart yacht race

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At the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, a Female Crew of Two

Kathy Veel and Bridget Canham, competing in the two-handed division, will also be on the race’s second-smallest boat.

By John Clarke

Kathy Veel has come a long way since 1989, when she first sailed in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race with an all-female crew on the Belles Long Ranger.

“It started off with four of us women — we figured, let’s give it a shot,” said Veel, 70, a retired teacher who lives in Bullaburra, about 60 miles west of Sydney, Australia. “We didn’t have a boat. We didn’t have any money. It was a real start from scratch. No one took us seriously.”

Not anymore. Veel is now back for her third Sydney Hobart, which starts on Monday, this time also breaking ground. She will be part of the only all-female crew competing in the race’s two-handed division on the Currawong , at 30 feet long the second smallest boat in the fleet. She will be sailing with Bridget Canham, 62, of Sydney, a veteran of several Sydney Hobart races.

Veel said that in 1989, there were doubts the crew of women could handle the grueling conditions of the race.

“We were kind of a token gesture,” she said. “There were a lot of people who didn’t think we were up to it. They would ask, what we were going to do when it’s blowing 30 knots and the boat is swamped? We’ll be doing pretty much what they’ll be doing — putting up sails and racing the boat.”

Their goal was to simply finish the race, which they did. “It opened the door for us,” Veel said.

“Women in sailing have come so far,” she said. “Most boats these days have got women on them. And that’s great.”

Canham, a retired nurse who volunteers as an emergency boat pilot, said sailing had indeed changed.

“Sailing is more of an integrated sport now,” she said. “Now, it’s just by coincidence that we are just two women on a boat. We’re just sailors. We don’t think of ourselves as anything different.”

The two-handed division, where a boat is raced by two sailors — as opposed to a large crew ranging from 6 to 25 — is now in its second year at the Sydney Hobart. For Veel and Canham, the draw of two-handed racing is access.

“Having a fully crewed racing yacht was way outside of my resources,” Veel said. “I’m retired. But now that they have the two-handed, we can do the race. It gives people the opportunity to sail in the race who aren’t on a fully crewed yacht.” Yearly maintenance on two-handed boats might be $10,000, while much larger yachts require millions of dollars to maintain.

Canham also said the sailors in the two-handed division were a tightknit group. “The two-handed community is just so supportive; it’s like we are all on the same team,” she said.

Veel and Canham generally split duties on the boat, taking turns on the sails and at the wheel, with Canham focusing on sails and Veel on navigation and race tactics.

“Bridget knows the wind and is good at getting the best out of the boat,” Veel said. “She’ll have every sail tweaked and tuned. She never takes her eye off the ball. She’s also extremely gutsy and strong-minded and determined.”

Veel and Canham have prepared for the event by sailing in four other races this year. Over that time, they realized the boat, a Currawong 30, built in 1974 with beaten 20-year-old sails, needed upgrades, but they’ve accepted its limits.

“We’ve been able to test out our boat in these previous races, but it really has felt that 90 percent of this race has been just getting to the start line,” Veel said. “We’ve just been focused on getting the boat ready. Now that we are there, and there are no more obstacles between us and the race, that’s when I’m starting to wonder what have I got myself into. Now it’s real.”

Canham heads into the race committed, but knows their limitations.

“No one is expecting us to do anything,” she said. “But I don’t think they realize just how determined we are.”

• Currawong 30
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Extremely lucky yacht duo 'glad to be back' on dry land

Two people who spent 19 hours clinging to their stricken yacht in ferocious seas say they're happy to be back on dry land.

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Navy and police vessels battled heavy seas to save 60-year-old Brett and 48-year-old Lisa from the 19-metre vessel about 7.25am on Tuesday.

Mechanical failures - including a broken rudder - led to the Spirit of Mateship becoming stranded about 185km east of Nowra, on the NSW south coast, before it drifted further to sit around 300km offshore.

The pair arrived back on dry land on Tuesday evening, hugging rescuers in front of waiting media at marine police headquarters.

"We're glad to be back," Brett, the yacht's owner, told reporters. 

He said the boat was "more than seaworthy" but its occupants had become "tired, seasick and couldn't continue any further", activating one of the boat's distress beacons.

"The communication from everyone was wonderful and we knew what was going on at all times," Lisa said.

Those who came to their aid said it highlighted the importance of carrying emergency position indicating radio beacons or EPIRBs.

"Without the activation of the EPIRB ... it's unlikely we would have been aware of the distress situation," Australian Maritime Safety Authority's Ben Flight said.

The distress beacon alert was received about midday on Monday but heavy seas and strong winds plagued rescue efforts.

Brett, believed to have been living on the boat since January, and his companion set sail from Jervis Bay in recent days.

Dramatic footage of the rescue showed a small police recovery vessel next to the yacht as the two boats rose and fell in heaving seas.

"Got one, one aboard," an observer can be heard shouting in the video.

The duo were uninjured but exhausted after their near-24-hour ordeal, quickly falling asleep after climbing aboard their rescue vessel.

NSW Police Chief Inspector Anthony Brazzill labelled the pair "extremely lucky", given winds of between 50 and 70km/h and seas of up to 6m had made executing the rescue effort challenging.

"Their boat wasn't sinking, but they were definitely taking on water. They've got mechanical issues in terrible conditions … it could have been life-threatening if we weren't able to get to them in time," he said.

The yacht had to be abandoned.

Navy vessel HMAS Canberra assisted in the rescue effort, shielding police vessel Nemesis as the smaller ship made the daring rescue.

HMAS Canberra captain Brendan O'Hara said conditions for the pair on the yacht would have been torturous, given his much larger ship had also battled the powerful swells.

"(The pair) were just holding on as best they could ... I hate to think what it was like for them because even on board Canberra, which is quite a large ship, we were rocking and rolling a fair bit," he said.

HMAS Canberra rendezvoused with the stricken yacht at 1am on Tuesday, while the police boat arrived at 3am.

The choppy conditions initially prevented authorities from winching the duo out of their boat and airlifting them for treatment.

They will be given a medical assessment when they arrive in Sydney.

Before the rescue, AMSA officials said the matter had become "time-sensitive" with the boat taking on water.

Two Royal Australian Navy ships and an RAAF C-130J Hercules aircraft were initially involved in the rescue operation.

The Spirit of Mateship has entered a number of Sydney to Hobart races, crewed by wounded and injured former defence force personnel to raise money for charity Mates4Mates.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott launched the boat in 2013 before the vessel's first Sydney to Hobart effort.

Australian Associated Press

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Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2024

Currawong finishes in fine style

• 02 Jan, 2023 11:36:00 AM

The arrival of Kathy Veel and Bridget Canham in Hobart on New Year's Eve was like something out of a fairytale.

The last arrivals in the 2022 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race slipped into the docks amid the crowds ringing in the New Year, under a sky lit up by fireworks and hooters sounding to welcome in 2023.

Sailing on the second smallest boat in the fleet, the 9.1 metre   Currawong   in the Two-Handed Division, the women made the finish line of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s (CYCA) race at 11:42:06pm and everyone was there waiting for them.   It was a beautiful, warm night in Hobart and a great way to end the 628 nautical mile race.   Currawong’s 70-year-old owner and co-skipper, Kathy Veel, said: "Unbelievable. Overwhelming. When you have people shouting 'Curr-a-wong'… it was unbelievable, incredible.   "We’ve had lots of messages of encouragement and a bit of a following on our Facebook page and through crowd funding. I think a week before the race, the news got out and I’ve been getting messages from students I used to teach," the retired teacher said.   "I got messages from people out of the past, it’s incredible. I’m really proud of what we’ve done."   She had bought the 48-year-old Currawong 30 and sailed it two-handed from Melbourne to Sydney in the lead-up to the race. She and 62-year-old Canham entered it in the CYCA’s Bird Island Race in November and finished when others chose to pull out in the light conditions.   Veel said at the time they had been taught well by Kerry Goudge, a mentor and one of the early skippers of all women’s crews in the Sydney Hobart, that to finish a race was a must. The two backed up and finished the Cabbage Tree Island Race, so there was no doubt in followers' minds they would finish the 2022 Rolex Sydney Hobart.   Back in Hobart in the early hours of the New Year, Veel said, "The boat behaved so well, I’m so in love with the boat and it’s some of the best sailing I’ve ever enjoyed in my whole life, in the last week."   On pulling into Eden for a spell before entering Bass Strait, Veel said, "It was me who made that decision. Bridget was really keen to carry on. I was extremely tired because we had two very difficult days of flying the kite basically single-handed and we carried on for 21 hours.   "I found my limit. There was a pretty severe weather forecast for that night. There was one weather model predicting gusts in the high 40s/50s downwind.   "Heavy downwind sailing is scariest. I felt I wasn’t the full quid and Bridget was the one who would be doing the sail changes. She said, 'We can put the trysail on, set the storm jib and we’ll be right’.   "I thought, Bridget is the one up there and she needs me to be 100 per cent to keep her there. I had this knot of anxiety in my stomach - and you can’t go into a possibly extreme situation like that." Was there any thought of retiring?   "No, not at all. What I did feel really strongly about was 'give me some rest and I’ll be happy to take whatever Bass Strait throws at us'."   Veel, who sailed on Christine Evans’ all-women   Belles Ranger   crew in 1989 (only the second all-women crew to do the race)  added, "We’ve had some stunning sailing. We were really sorry to miss the competition with   Gun Runner   and   Maluka   particularly, that was disappointing. But we had to do what was right for us and the situation we were in."   Canham, a retired nurse, originally met Veel sailing on Kerry Goudge’s all-women’s crew in the 1993 race, regarded by many as the toughest Sydney Hobart. They not only finished that race, but stood by a boat in distress.   She was just as surprised as Veel at the reception in Hobart.   "This welcome was just unbelievable and to get here before the fireworks was just the best."   Of sailing the race two-handed, Canham said, "It’s very challenging. We didn’t have a lot of time to train, but we certainly got a lot of training in this one.   "Our biggest challenge was getting the boat here before New Year’s Day. I was saying to Kathy, ‘You need to do 7 knots, otherwise it’s not enough’. We’ve been working our butts off to get here and it’s paid off."   The retired pair did the race on a string budget, mounting a crowd funding campaign to get them to the start and finish line. And make the finish line they did, to a warm welcome from family, friends and from those who were just in awe of what these two women achieved.   Like everyone else, Kerry Goudge would be proud of them.   Di Pearson/RSHYR media

Congratulations to all the divisional winners of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2023

PHOTOS | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Official Prizegiving

PHOTOS | Day 5 Morning - Tasman Island and Storm Bay

PHOTOS | Day 5 and Day 6 finishers

PHOTOS | Official Presentation of Tattersall Cup and Rolex Timepiece to the Overall Winner

2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race - A Race for the Ages

VIDEO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race - Rolex Daily Video Summary

VIDEO | Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2023

VIDEO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Official Prizegiving

VIDEO | Race Update - 31 December Morning

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 10

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 9

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 8

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 7

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 6

Official rolex sydney hobart merchandise.

Shop the official clothing range of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in person at the Club in New South Head Road, Darling Point or online below.  

From casual to technical clothing, there is something for all occasions. Be quick as stock is limited!

Sailors met by family on dry land after yacht rescue in 'horrendous conditions'

By Millie Roberts

A man and a woman have returned to dry land after being rescued from a yacht on the New South Wales South Coast.

Brett and Lisa were saved during a multi-agency rescue on Tuesday morning, before docking in Sydney on Tuesday.

Lisa, 48, said she was feeling "safe and secure and happy" after the ordeal.

A man and woman have expressed gratitude for being back on dry land after they were rescued from a stricken yacht on the New South Wales South Coast on Tuesday. 

Brett, 60, and Lisa, 48, were found "safe and sound" about 170 nautical miles east of Nowra at around 7:30am.

"I am so pleased to say that this rescue operation has been a resounding success," NSW Marine Area Command Acting Superintendent Siobhan Munro said.

The rescue mission was launched off the South Coast after a distress beacon was activated about 1pm on Monday.

Two sailors, Lisa and Brett, were rescued off the NSW coast after their yacht began taking on water. ( ABC News: Victoria Pengilley )

At the time, the yacht was 85 nautical miles from Sydney, and had drifted 160 nautical miles offshore by the time emergency services reached Brett and Lisa.

"That's how strong the winds were and how fast it was, pushing the vessel away," NSW Marine Area Command Sergeant Ryan Spong said of the conditions.

The 19-metre vessel, Spirit of Mateship, had experienced mechanical failure and was taking on water, Ben Flight from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said on Tuesday morning.

Spirit of Mateship was left abandoned at sea following the rescue. ( Supplied: POB Jason Herrmann )

It's believed Brett and Lisa left Jervis Bay on Sunday or Monday for Sydney, NSW Marine Area Command Chief Inspector Anthony Brazzill said.

On Tuesday, a multi-agency operation retrieved the pair "in some quite horrendous conditions", Sergeant Spong added.

The pair were taken on board NSW Water Police vessel Nemesis, and thanked everyone involved in their return to Sydney.

Lisa said she was feeling "safe and secure and happy" despite not getting much sleep last night.

The 60-year-old man and 48-year-old woman were greeted by family members at the NSW Police Area Command in Balmain. ( ABC News: Victoria Pengilley )

Brett said the waiting was "alright" and that the boat was "safe" and "more than seaworthy".

"It was more we were tired, seasick, we couldn't continue any further," he said.

"That was a decision we made to call ... it could have got worse ... I think we made the right decision."

The Nemesis passed through Sydney Heads just before 6pm, before the pair were met by family in Balmain half an hour later.

Spirit of Mateship, which has raced in several Sydney to Hobart yacht races, was abandoned at sea.