Since 1964, only two boats have won line honours in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race on two consecutive years: the legendary Wild Oats XI and LawConnect. That’s it.

For LawConnect that is a pretty amazing outcome because, frankly, we haven’t been the fastest boat. LawConnect is the perpetual underdog and so-called ‘bridesmaid’ with several 2nd places to our credit.

Our owner, Christian Beck, a visionary business leader and keen yachtsman with a great sense of humour, quite sensationally calls the boat a ‘sh*tbox’ in comparison to our rivals.

While it is my own personal feeling that I love the boat and she has been so good to us, it is almost certainly true that she is the heaviest, oldest and has the smallest budget, attributes that don’t generally scream ‘winner’ in big boat racing.

LawConnect’s 2023 win is considered one of the most fantastic wins of all time, captured in detail in the Rolex video A Race for the Ages amongst other press coverage.

But I don’t think our 2024 win gets the respect that it should. A lot of race followers believe we only got the win because of breakages on other boats.

It’s true that Comanche reported a broken mainsail, and even Celestial said that a broken A3 spinnaker may have cost them the top spot. But the reality is these narratives portray LawConnect as a passive recipient of the 2024 win. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The keys to Hobart victory for us have always been preparation, communication, and an extraordinarily talented crew. Because Comanche is so much faster, they just have to sail an ‘okay’ race to beat us. We, on the other hand, have to sail a perfect race to beat them.

The 2024 Sydney Hobart race win didn’t happen by accident; it was won in a brainstorming session before we even left the dock. Looking at the forecast, which called for very strong winds – 30-plus knots downwind with huge seas – we hatched an audacious game plan to put the screws on Comanche.

We decided the one thing we could do better than them in this forecast was gybe in big breeze. Confident in our crew work, we were going to be the ones who could pull off heavy-weather manoeuvres without a hitch, so we were going to force them to gybe to cover us.

The Moment of Truth

After the gun sounded, we soundly beat the other 100 footers – Comanche, Wild Thing and Maritimo – out of the wild and exciting chaos that is Sydney Harbour start on Boxing Day.

After we turned south at the first clearing mark, unfortunately, we had a problem with our furler (as we did the year before). It was a self-imposed error that caused us to fumble and gift Comanche a nice little lead. Given their pace, that lead stretched as we raced under spinnaker down the coast, racking up mind-blowing offshore speeds.

As we approached the Bateman’s Bay area near the southern part of the continent, the sea state was huge. The boat was smashing through the waves, flying at full light-speed. During one of the bumpier sections, as I’d been crunching the data, I saw an opportunity to pounce: it was time to set our plan in motion.

“Guys, it’s time to gybe,” I said. “Remember our strategy. There’s more pressure along the coast.”

Tony Mutter was driving with Chris ‘Nico’ Nicolson at the helm station. This duo happens to be two of the greatest offshore sailors in the world. They looked at me like I was crazy and jumped in before I could finish my thesis.

“Lewwy, look around. We’ve already got more wind than we know what to do with. It’s blowing 35, gusting 45.”

“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “But if we gybe, we’ll have a favourable current eddy to help us that they won’t get because they are further south. We’ll have better speed over ground and probably flatter water with the current going with us.”

No sooner had I finished my sentence than Nico and Tony said in unison, “Ready to gybe.” The team sprang into motion. We pulled off that gybe, smooth as can be, and went screaming toward the coast.

I watched carefully to see if Comanche would respond. I could see we had already gained an advantage because we had better speed over ground. Those were anxious minutes as I was pretty certain that they didn’t want to gybe – and if they did one now, they’d have to do more gybes later.

Nico came down to the nav station, wet as a dog, asking, “Lewwy, where are we and where are they?” I told him we are aimed just south of Montague Island.

Nico looked at me incredulously. He looked at his watch, “But it’s still daylight. It’s only 19:50. I’ve never been here in daylight.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “Nobody has. This is a record-setting pace.”

As we were talking, Comanche changed course and headed back to the coast like us. By the time they were able to respond to cover us, they were in likely much bigger seas. After clicking off a few more miles, we reached the edge of the eddy, gybed again, back onto port with the good water aligned perfectly at our stern. A few minutes later they gybed again right on our line to cover, but this time we were much closer to them. Gains to LawConnect.

Conditions and speed were insane, and icy water flowed like a firehose over the deck.

At the border of New South Wales and Victoria, with darkness already set in, Comanche gybed in front of us, onto starboard, to head back for the next wind shift, anticipated to be an easterly. I saw when they were on the other gybe on AIS, we were only about three miles apart and their speed was way down.

We were flying like a heat-seeking missile right at them doing approximately 30 knots. The closing time at those speeds was only six minutes. As I was working all this out at the nav station, I heard on VHF Channel 16:

“LawConnect, this is Comanche. Do you copy? Over.”

I grabbed the VHF. “Comanche, this is LawConnect. We copy.”

“LawConnect, this is Comanche. We are restricted in our ability to manoeuvre and we want to ensure that you can see us as you’re pointed right toward us.”

I responded immediately: “Comanche, we have you on AIS and we will avoid. Do you require any assistance?”

The response came back instantly, calm and professional, despite the conditions and issues. “Comanche does not require assistance, thank you LawConnect. Comanche standing by on 1-6.”

After checking with Tony that he could see them, in an instant, we were on Comanche and gybed just inside. We flew past them in the blink of an eye. At the time, we didn’t know exactly what happened in the dark of the night, but we knew they blew their gybe. We had a strategy, and we executed it.

Protecting the Asset

Once Comanche was out of the race, I checked the numbers. We were about 25 miles ahead of the 2017 all-time Hobart race record, and presumably, the fastest ever to reach the infamous Bass Strait (not bad for an underdog sh*tbox). I went up on deck to have a chat with Tony and Nico.

“Guys, I know Comanche is out, but we are a long way ahead of the Hobart race record. If we continue to fully send it, we have a great chance of breaking the record.”

“No way,” Tony said. “Right now, it’s time to protect the asset.”

“You sure?” I asked, knowing this was a ‘make or break’ moment.

“These are boat-breaking conditions,” Tony said firmly. “We are throttling back.”

From then on, we were just on a jib and main combination. The breeze came around to the east as expected, a bit on the nose at times, and the sea state was heinous.

Brad Jackson, a legendary sailor who has been around the world in the Volvo Ocean Race many times, saying to me in his understated way, after a gruelling watch on deck, “Jesus, these are tough conditions.” I’ve sailed with Brad a lot and admire him greatly, so when he said things are tough, that’s saying something.

I realised then that the decision Tony and Nico took probably won us the race. It was a virtual certainty that if we continued full throttle to attempt to break the record, we would have broken our own boat in the process as we launched off waves.

As morning broke, so did the news of the fatalities [two competitors tragically died in two separate incidents in the race]. I had the unfortunate task of telling the sad and troubling news as each set of sailors came off watch.

A Hero Steps Up

Winning Hobart is as much about handling crises as it is about speed or tactics. Later, while we were cruising along, keeping an eye behind us on the distant Celestial and Wild Thing, we intentionally sailed into lighter breeze along the Tasmanian Coast just to keep between them and the finish – even though they were miles behind.

But in those relatively tame, though still wet and windy conditions, I heard the phrase that no sailor wants to hear: “Dead Ship.”

The E-stop button, which is a safety device that can be pushed to temporarily and immediately stop all winches to prevent harm to humans or the boat, had shorted out due to water ingress. All the winches stopped working, unintentionally.

When the winches stop on a powerful Maxi, you are fully at nature’s mercy and have a potentially dangerous situation. You can no longer trim the sails, and we needed to get them back working immediately.

Ty Oxley, our boat captain, stepped up to save the situation. Even with water everywhere, he took the covers off the electrical wires on deck to figure out which switch had shorted. After isolating the problem switch, we had to bypass it.

He turned to me. “Lewwy, do you know which wires we should connect to complete the circuit? Which should I cut? There’s black, red, white, and green.” The absurdity of Ty standing there soaking wet while holding live electrical wires wasn’t lost on me at the time.

It was exactly like those thriller movies where the bomb is about to go off and the hero has to choose what wires to snip. I think he said, “I’ll cut the black one,” but I’m honestly not sure what he said or did as he has a bias for action.

He clipped it. He combined the wires. Boom – the winches came back to life. We could have easily been out of the race right there had it not been for Ty and his troubleshooting abilities and knowledge of the boat.

Through it all, we preserved the asset, solved problems, and crossed the finish line first to win line honours for the 2024 Rolex Sydney Hobart.

On arrival, we didn’t pop champagne corks or throw Christian in the water like we did the year before. There was no trophy presentation at the winner’s circle at Constitution Dock and we didn’t break our $9,700 record bar tab at Custom’s House. We had a muted celebration to honour our fallen comrades and recognise that the rest of the fleet at sea was still experiencing the sort of thrashing that Hobart races are renowned for dishing out.

2025 Rolex Sydney Hobart contenders

With the start of the 2025 Sydney Hobart just under a week away, once again, we are the underdogs for line honours, and this year the fleet is especially strong with an astonishing seven boats at, or nearly at, the 100-foot maximum (including the cruiser/racer Maritimo 100).

In no particular order, they are:

• MasterLock Comanche: As always, considered the favourite with some of the greatest sailors on earth and an incredible speed machine. Over the years, I have built this mental image that LawConnect are the hunters and they are the hunted. We are going to stalk them, chase them, and never give up until we beat them. If you are on their boat, you are always looking behind, scared that LawConnect is going to figure out a way to jump ahead right when it matters most.

• Palm Beach XI (formerly Wild Oats XI): They’ve just completed a major refit that includes a deeper keel and foil package that should make the boat dramatically faster in certain conditions. In my opinion, they are either going to be really, really fast or it’s going to be tough going because they simply haven’t had the time to prepare. That said, the Palm Beach/Wild Oats program is the most successful in Hobart history, and we tremendously respect Mark ‘Ricko’ Richards and the crew.

• SHK Scallywag 100: If you had to predict a winner based on who wants it the most, David ‘Witty’ Witt and the Scallywags want it more than anyone. They are hungry, and they have a great all-around boat and tight-knit, talented crew. In their conditions, they will be a handful. I know this first-hand as I sailed with the Scallywags this summer where we won line honours in the Loro Piana Giraglia race, beating other 100-footers including the brand new Magic Carpet E and Arca (ex-Skandia Wild Thing) as well as other European Maxi royalty like Capricorno, My Song and Django.

• Wild Thing 100: The charismatic Grant Wharington has lovingly built Wild Thing 100 one piece at a time like one of my favourite Johnny Cash songs. This is the first year with the mast bought from Wild Oats, so they finally have a complete 100-footer package, which they used effectively by winning line honours in the 2025 Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race. Wild Thing is dramatically lighter than LawConnect, so in light conditions, the Wild Things have a weapon on their hands.

• Lucky (formerly Rambler 88): Essentially a more modern version of our boat, but a little shorter and a lot lighter with a deeper keel. In the right conditions, Lucky might also pull off a Hobart win. Fresh off a Transpac race, they are legitimate contenders.

As always, on LawConnect, we will bring it on Boxing Day, drawing on our key principles.

1) a low-key, ‘no egos’ professional team;

2) driving skills honed by competition in Christian’s 20 electric go-karts at our crew house

3) a ‘never give up’ attitude.

We will again share the Sydney to Hobart action live on LawConnect‘s YouTube channel, which include live drone footage. This year we’re also bringing our not-so-secret weapon, swimmer Ian Thorpe and his Olympic medals.