Doyle Sails Round North Island: Most of fleet have finished
by Richard Gladwell Sail-World.com 15 Mar 19:19 PDT
Explore racing - Bay of Islands Sailing Week - January 2025 - Bay of Islands © Jacob Fewtrell Media
The Elliott 50 Explore Racing (William Goodfellow and Jesse Turner) crossed the finish line off Westhaven, Auckland, at 1845hrs Sunday evening to take line honours Leg 4 of the Doyle Sails Two Handed Round Race.
Motorboat III (Damon Joliffe and Josh Tucker) a Thompson 1150 was second to finish at 2107hrs or 2hrs 22mins later. With four or five yachts still racing it would seem that Motorboat III has won the leg, once PHRF ratings have been applied. However the overall race leader Ragnar (Brett Elliott and James Glidden) has placed second overall on the Leg, and provisionally would seem to have won the race by a 1pt margin, despite Motorboat III being overall winner of three of the four legs.
Explore Racing took line honours on all four legs on the 1,210nm race which started on February 28. In the first and third legs, Explorer Racing completed the Leg in under 24hours.
Third home into Auckland was Focus (Elliott 1350 Tourer), crewed by Craig Fraser and Rob Croft, which crossed the finish at 0049hrs. They were chased up the Waitemata by the Verdier 40, Vixen Racing (Sharon Ferris-Choat and Taylor Edwards)which crossed the finish at 0121hrs. Pipi (a Pogo 36 - sailed by Steve Newcombe and Craig Parker) who crossed just over an hour later at 0240hrs.
The crucial move in the last stages of the race for third home came around 8.20pm, when Vixen Racing elected to cross Focus' transom. and split tacks, with Vixen Racing going around the bottom or southern side of Rangitoto Island, leaving Focus to pursue the more northerly route. It was the last roll of the dice for Vixen Racing, and remarkably - given the light SW (offshore) breeze the move appeared to not make much difference, and they entered the inner Waitemata in a similar position to their last cross.
Race organisers, Shorthanded Sailing Assoc of of NZ reported a flurry of finishes over a 102minute period with Whichway, General Lee, Ragnor, Kayimai, Nicksen, and Perfect Storm all crossing before 5.00am.
Kick finished 2hrs behind Perfect Storm, in little breeze just after 7am before another park up ensued.
Indis sat off Devonport for some time with no breeze and tide against them. Meanwhile Motorboat 2 Handed sailed round Akonga and Motorboat 2 to cross the line in front of them, in 13th place less than 3 minutes in front of Indis after over 360nm of racing, and all within 30 minutes between 10.30am and 11.02am. Higher Ground came across the line at 12.43pm and Hot Dogger at 13.01pm in a NNW of 4-5 knots and low tide.
Two more boats retired on Leg 4, dropping the racing fleet down to 22 boats.
For full results Click here
For live tracking, and race results for the event, visit the race website www.ssanz.co.nz/round-north-island-2026 or follow Short Handed Sailing Association of New Zealand social channels.