18ft Skiff President's Trophy Season Pointscore Race 16
by Frank Quealey 25 Jan 01:46 PST
25 January 2026
The newly-crowned Australian 18ft skiff champion Balmain team of Henry Larkings, Tom Grimes and Lachlan Pryor continued the winning form from last weekend when they produced an awesome performance in a 10-14-knot North East breeze to win the President's Trophy Australian 18 Footers League Season Pointscore race on Sydney Harbour today.
With their big #1 rig working perfectly, the team grabbed a narrow lead at the weather mark on the second lap of the course and powered away from the fleet on the following spinnaker run down the centre of the course to the bottom mark. From that point the team had total control of the race and went on to score a comfortable victory.
At the finish, Balmain defeated Club Marine (Emma Rankin, Brandon Buyink and Jed Cruikshank) by one minute, with Yandoo (Tom Needham, Miles Davey and Lewis Brake) a further 14s back in third place.
In a closely-bunched group, Vaikobi (Kirk Mitchell) finished fourth ahead of Killer Coffee Co (Cam McDonald). A gallant Lazarus Capital Partners (Tom Cunich) was next with her smaller #2 rig followed by Shaw and Partners Financial Services (Jordan Girdis), also with the smaller rig.
Uncertainty in the rigging area about the likely wind strength of the Nor'Easter sent several crews to their smaller #2 rigs before the start. When the breeze failed to strengthen throughout most of the race, it was a move which proved too costly to overcome.
The current Giltinan world champion Yandoo team got off to a poor start and tacked away shortly after the start while the Shaw and Partners team led narrowly from a group which included Vaikobi and Balmain.
At the first set of weather marks, Lazarus took advantage of sailing to the blue (shortest) buoy and grabbed the lead from Shaw and Partners and Vaikobi, while Sixt (Jacob Marks) also took advantage of the blue buoy to move into fourth place ahead of Balmain.
Despite the disadvantage of running downwind with her #2 rig, Lazarus retained her lead at the wing mark off Shark Island and also overcame a slow spinnaker drop at the bottom mark at Clark Island to still lead the fleet by 10s from Balmain, but with the breeze remaining light it was obvious that Balmain was going to over-power the leader on the following beat to the weather mark.
Vaikobi was in third place just ahead of Sixt. Shaw and Partners led the next group which included The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines (Hugo Stoner), Club Marine and Yandoo.
Lazarus was impressive in the unfavourable conditions and managed to hold off the strong challenge from the bigger rigged Balmain team, but finally succumbed to the pressure as the pair approached the weather marks where Balmain held a 15s advantage.
Balmain has been strong downwind in similar conditions this season and she never looked more impressive than on the following run directly to the Clark Island mark where she had extended her lead to 1m25s.
From that point the Australian champion team was in total control and held a 1m15s lead at the final weather mark before cruising home a one minute victor.
Race 1 next Sunday will be the traditional Queen of the Waves race which will be followed by another 3-buoys pointscore race. The League's usual spectator ferry will follow the races and SailMedia will live stream all the action with expert commentary from the course.