2026 Tri Search 12ft Skiff Interdominion Championship - Day 2
by Di Pearson, 12ft Skiff Media 5 Jan 01:26 PST
3-10 January 2026
Lining up for the start - 2026 triSearch 12ft Skiff Interdominion Championship on Sydney Harbour Day 2 © @sprottmedia
Today's two races in the triSearch 12ft Skiff Interdominion Championship on Sydney Harbour were punctuated by shifty light airs that were hard to read and react to, leading to countless capsizes and one crew falling overboard, but quickly pulled back aboard by his skipper - a day when swimming was second only to sailing.
With three races now put to bed, Sail Inc. (Lane Cove) leads three Sydney Flying Squadron boats - Geotherm by three points, Sydney Sailmakers by a further point, Terms & Conditions and the first Kiwi entry, Monkey Wrench (Jono Clough/Pat Morgan), in fifth.
C-Tech (Alex Vallings/Fraser Brown, NZL) won the day's first race (Race 2), but fell down the leaderboard to seventh place in in Race 3. "We had a moderate start and a good finish," Vallings said of the earlier race.
"In the second race (t the start), we had to go back on starboard to get clear and that left us behind. We caught up and then lost it all again," said Vallings, whose crew fell off the boat at Rose Bay during the race, but that did not cost them much time.
Geotherm (Brett Hobson/Peter Nicholson, NSW) were second in Race 2, with Sydney Sailmakers (Josh Tasker/Brendan Jenkins, NSW) in third.
Race 3 and it was Sail Inc. all the way in some of the trickiest conditions that had the rest swapping places throughout. Sydney Sailmakers came home second, with Terms & Conditions (Brad Phillips/Oscar Willson NSW) settling for third, earlier having held second place.
"We had a good lead, but they (Sydney Sailmakers and Terms & Conditions) caught us up down the run to the finish. It was a tricky race. It got light with big shifts. It was hard to judge when to set a kite, so we were a bit conservative," Nick Press said.
Brett Hobson: "We had two bad starts. We got out of the first one nicely, but we were buried in the second one, then couldn't lay the top mark."
But Geotherm fought back to finish fourth in Race 3, courtesy of Murray Press/Mark Muirhead (Red Energy, NSW) whose spinnaker went up with a wine glass in it. Press, the father of Nick, had made good use of the overtaking lanes, but the dreaded wine glass at the Rose Bay mark put paid to their chances.
Brendan Jenkins was happy with Sydney Sailmakers' day. "It was a good day," he said. "In the second race the line was biased ad we saw it and got ourselves into a good place.
"Terms & Conditions was between Nick (Sail Inc.) and us, which gave Nick distance on us. Then we recognised the breeze had gone to the east and we dealt with that. We played the shifts and got into pressure better," he said of their move into second place.
"We backed ourselves and stayed calm - we put it all together," Jenkins explained.
Others had their chances in Race 3. LCC Asia Pacific (Jonathan Temple/Richard Jones, NSW) was among them, looking good early on. However, they were not a presence in the second half of the race.
Temple explained: "We were sailed off the course (by a Kiwi boat that had numerous capsizes). It took both of us out of contention. In other words," Temple said laughing, "We were taken off the course by stupidity and foreign intervention."
Race 1 was the easier of the two races, a fairly steady south-easterly, but by Race 2, the wind went wherever it fancied at any given time, dropped out, went east-south-east, picked up and dropped right out for the back runners. Big rigs were tailor made for the day, but some went down to their number 2 rigs, which made the going especially tough in Race 2.
Skoll (Robbie Polect/Sam Colbey) was late off the ramp at the 18 Footers League at Double Bay, which is hosting the 63rd Interdominion, much to the consternation of his father, Peter, a former 12s sailor who is kindly playing media boat driver for us this week. But Skoll made it just in the nick of time.
The intention was for one race to be sailed tomorrow, but in lieu of only one of two races being sailed on the opening day, it was decided today that it will be two races tomorrow, starting from 2pm.
Ten races are planned for the Interdominion, which finishes on Saturday 10 January, with a lay day on Wednesday. The event is being hosted by the Australian 18 Footers League at Double Bay.
triSearch is the naming rights sponsor for the 63rd Interdominion and is a subsidiary of InfoTrack. Support sponsors are Your Move Conveyancing and Pete's Home Loans.
First held on Sydney Harbour in 1957, the Interdominion is an annual competition between Australia and New Zealand for the Silasec Trophy.
Thanks to Your Move Conveyancing a spectator ferry will be on the water for the final day of racing on 10 January and departs Double Bay Wharf at 1.30pm, so bring your friends and family along to be a part of the action.
Ferry tickets at events.humanitix.com/10-january-12ft-skiff-interdominion-ferry-final-day
For all information on the 12ft Skiff class and its events, please visit: www.skiff.org.au.