Alive wins Sydney Hobart Race for second time

Alive, skippered by Duncan Hine, has been declared the overall winner of the 78th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, securing the Tasmanian boat its second victory in five years.

The win is also Tasmania’s fifth in the 628-nautical mile-race, after Hine skippered Phillip Turner’s Reichel/Pugh 66 to its first victory in 2018.

Alive’s win adds extra polish to the pedigree of the boat that its owner, Philip Turner, bought as the former Black Jack in 2014, with a view to winning the race. After its victory in 2018, Alive came close again in 2019, but placed fourth. Last year it finished 10th.

First held in 1945, the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race has a traditional lunchtime start on 26 December every year. The race, organised by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in collaboration with the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, has a 628-nautical mile (1,010-kilometre) course that starts from Sydney Harbour and finishes in Hobart, the capital of the island state of Tasmania.

“It goes to prove finally that it [2018] wasn’t a fluke,” Hine joked shortly after clinching the second win. “I’m very lucky really. Phil has such an amazing boat to start with. We’ve got a really good crew. And the weather was good for us.”

Alive’s win is the highlight of an extraordinary year for the boat. This year, Alive also claimed overall honours at Hamilton Island Race Week, the Brisbane to Hamilton Island Race and Bruny Island Race, as well as line honours in the King of the Derwent Regatta.

“It has been a remarkable year for the boat,” said Hine, adding that while Turner did not sail on Alive this year, unlike in 2018, he has celebrated with him over a “quick chat or two” by phone.

The result also signs off on a strong performance for San Diego-based designers Reichel/Pugh in the race, as the top three overall came from their design board, with the RP72 URM Group finishing third over the line for second overall and RP69, Moneypenny, taking third place overall. “Reichel/Pugh designs are proving to be pretty lucky for many of these races,” Hine says.

Asked what was the key point of the race that shored up Alive’s victory, Hine cited the last stretch up the Derwent River to the finish and their nail-biting tussle with URM Group. The skipper said, “It was a cliffhanger right up to the bloody finish, wasn’t it? The Derwent River always pulls something out of the bag.”

Hine and his crew had to play a waiting game until this morning when the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia declared Alive the winner of the prestigious Tattersall Cup. Hine said he felt more at ease during the waiting game ”for that confirmation than in 2018. I felt a lot more confident about it than in 2018,” he said. “I thought it would be hard to lose from where we were. If someone had knocked us off, they would have deserved it.”

Hine lauded his 14 crew, including navigator Adrienne Cahalan, for whom it was a 31st Sydney Hobart (a female record), and New Zealanders Gavin Brady and Stu Bannatyne and the rest of the crew.

“We worked so hard all the way through that race. Everyone put in 100 per cent,” Hine said.“You don’t always walk away feeling like you’ve done the best you could have personally, but I don’t think anyone would have hopped off the boat feeling they could have put more in.”