Red hot sailing for Scarlet Runner in Melbourne to Devonport Yacht Race
by Jane Austin / ORCV media 2 Nov 2025 21:39 PST
31 October - 2 November 2025
Scarlet Runner, skipper David Sturge holding trophy - Melbourne to Devonport Yacht Race © Jane Austin / ORCV media
When you're hot you're hot, and no boat was hotter in this year's Melbourne to Devonport Yacht Race than Scarlet Runner with the Carkeek 44 from Sandringham Yacht Club winning on line honours and taking out the prestigious Rudder Cup.
Scarlet Runner was one of a handful of boats that not only got off the line well at Draper's Reef near Queenscliff but kept the wind in their sails across what was one of the calmest Bass Strait crossings in recent history.
David Sturge, skipper of Scarlet Runner, was thrilled with the win, crossing the line in an elapsed time of 1 day, 7 hours, 14 minutes and 49 seconds, with Tasmanian boat AdvantEdge, skippered by Andrew Jones from the Port Dalrymple Yacht Club, finishing 1 hour and 40 minutes later, followed by Bruce Taylor's Chutzpah just 10 minutes behind them.
Scarlet Runner won the prestigious Rudder Cup Perpetual Trophy awarded on AMS handicap, on a corrected time of 1 day, 9 hours, 33 seconds and 33 minutes, and was awarded the Margaret Holmes Kerr Perpetual Trophy for her line honours win.
Scarlet Runner's owner Rob Date had been advised not to sail due to recent knee surgery giving David Sturge the honour of skippering his first offshore race.
"We have a great boat, and the crew is utterly amazing; we've had a good run in the recent series in Melbourne and did well last Christmas, but even so, as a first-time skipper, it's been really incredible," said Sturge.
So, what did Sturge think was the key to the success of Scarlet Runner in the light conditions?
"It's a light boat, but I think that our fractional zero, that we flew high, ended up being a great sail to use in this particular race.
"Scarlet Runner works very well with the breeze just behind the beam and we had quite a lot of that in this race, and we even got to have our favourite triple-headed configuration in which the boat absolutely sends," said Sturge.
Scarlet Runner had a tight tussle with AdvantEdge, which was full of Tassie locals, for line honours and AMS spoils, in the 195 nautical mile race to Devonport.
"Yeah, the local guys, we were looking at where they were going and thinking, they will know.
"There was a bit of yo-yoing going on, sometimes they were gaining on us at a fair clip, but sometimes we were pulling away, it was just nice to have a boat out there that we could see, it certainly spurs the trimmers on," said Sturge.
Quixotic, the X-41 skippered by Andrew Middleton was second on AMS overall and The Jackal, skippered by Matt Setton and sailing their first long-distance ocean race, finished in third.
Middleton, from the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria, and his crew were quietly proud of their spoils in the race winning the FH Stephens Perpetual Trophy for first on PHS and the Doc Bennell Perpetual Trophy for first on ORC after finishing fourth across the line.
"We are very pleased with our results, keeping the boat moving and staying out of the holes was important," said Middleton.
Crew member Hester Freeman, no stranger to ocean racing having sailed a few Melbourne to King Island and Apollo Bay races over the last five years, and with a previous Rudder Cup under her belt, was kept busy during the race.
"We kept the boat moving, we did a few sail changes that worked well including a spinnaker peel," said Freeman.
James Patterson was full of praise for his crewmates.
"It's a very good crew, we all worked really well together and my role, well I just got up every ten or fifteen minutes and told them to go faster," Patterson said laughing.
"We were all working together as a team, as a conglomerate, bouncing off each other, working as one unit with lots of thoughts going in - it's really good on the boat as everyone can have a say," said Patterson.
Highlights for skipper Middleton included being quick out of the [Port Phillip] Heads "and keeping Chutzpah and Scarlet Runner in our sight for a long, long time which was great, and also, I guess, realising sometimes that we missed a hole in the breeze that we could see the boats behind us fall into - it's a bit cruel, but what it meant was that we had made the right choice.
"For us, we did more sail changes than we would normally do offshore and every time that we did one, it was the right choice, we were really pleased with that," said Middleton.
The light forecast made it tough going for the fleet with one late withdrawal and nine retirements reducing the race to 17 yachts as boats fell into holes in the breeze, creating a virtual 'parking lot' on Bass Strait and making conditions more conducive to photography and whale watching than flat-out sailing.
Of the double-handed entries, Maverick, skippered by Rod Smallman with David Blake, was the last boat standing winning that Division and also achieving second place in Division 2 on AMS, PHS and ORC.
Race Directors Jeremy Walton and Catherine North had a long night waiting for the boats to arrive.
"The start of the race was really good, they all got out well, but from then it just depended upon whether you fell into the hole in the middle of Bass Strait or not.
"The boats that were up the front got out and kept going hard - at one stage Scarlet Runner was doing over 10 knots, but there were boats that sat in the hole for six hours and they had 90 nautical miles to go, and it was closer to go home at that stage for them," said Walton.
Walton reserved special praise for a few newcomers in the race.
"I think there are a couple of boats that have done really well in the race, The Jackal, in their first serious race out, I'm really impressed with, they've got a really good crew and have spent a lot of time on the boat, and Quixotic, an X-yacht, has done spectacularly well and won some silverware," said Walton.
Faster Forward crew members Sam Wines, John Bearsley, Drew Morgan and Kevin Dolan were all smiles after completing their first ocean race, all acknowledging the generosity of skipper Matt Fahey and mentor Simon Dryden, and the importance and practicality of the ORCV Beyond the Bay sailing program.
"Matt's been really good at fostering new crew, it's been something he has wanted to do the whole time, and he's done it again this race," said Walton.
Last year's Rudder Cup winner Dasher+Fisher How Bizarre, skippered by Steve Robinson, took out Division 2 convincingly with a clean sweep of AMS, ORC and PHS handicaps.
The race was supported by a team of dedicated volunteers from the Mersey Yacht Club of Tasmania under the leadership of Commodore, Sam McGrath.
Full race results at www.orcv.org.au/results/2025-26