2026 Sail Port Stephens Super Series - Overall
by Mark Rothfield 4 May 13:15 NZST
1-3 May 2026
Toasting with the sweet wine of success
The weather gods saved their most benevolent favours for the final day of racing of Week 3 of Sail Port Stephens, comprising the Super Series for large racer/cruiser monohulls and an inaugural division of multihulls.
The yacht fleet got cleanly off the line from the Nelson Bay breakwall in a 15 knot north-easterly, which translated into an upwind leg to Boondelbah Island before the first spinnaker leg south to a mark off Box Beach.
With the exception of Wild Oats X that led solo, the Super RC Division devolved into closely fought boat-on-boat match races: Triton and Antipodes, Dauget 2 and Drumfire, and Wine-Dark Sea and 51st Project.
The most intense duel, between Rob Aldis' Mylius 50 Daguet 2 and Phillip Neil's Hoek TC78 Drumfire, lasted right to the finish off Nelson Bay. with Daguet 2 just getting her bowsprit ahead for a two second winning margin.
The breeze built throughout the 28.5 nautical mile race, with gusts over 25 knots on the second downwind leg sending Wild Oats X surfing the offshore swells at 27 knots.
A second on PHS in the fresh conditions clinched the overall Super Series trophy for Peter Lowndes and his clearly elated crew from the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron on Wine-Dark Sea.
"The crew work this weekend has been fantastic," Lowndes said of his Lyons 49 regulars. "I'm sailing with a bunch of my mates who happen to be really good sailors, but we are a Corinthian program. We're not doing anything left-field, we don't have a huge sail wardrobe.
"It's been a great regatta, great courses racing around the islands here," Lowndes continued. "We've had really good battles with 51st Project all weekend. It's always good to have someone there who eggs you on and you know as long as you hold onto them you are going to get a good result."
Julian Bell's 51st Project had the distinction of sailing all 11 races over the three weeks of Sail Port Stephens 2026.
While Wine-Dark Sea edged-out Wild Oats X on PHS, the Oatley family's Reichel Pugh 66 did pick-up the Super RC Division IRC title with a hat trick of bullets.
But possibly the happiest skipper and crew of the series was Paul Booth and his mates aboard Chillout who won the inaugural Cat Stephens Division.
"It's been the best three days of racing for us ever," a beaming skipper intoned. "It was about consistency, and in the end the slower, heavier boats got there," Booth said, referring to the contest between his boat, a Seawind 1160 Lite, second placed Reflection, Paul Lehane's Seawind 1260, and the faster, more nimble Corsair trimarans.
"We were really chuffed to be invited to come to Sail Port Stephens, hopefully there will be many more of us [multihulls] next year," he continued. "Getting around the islands, getting around the lee of the islands, the back eddies, the current, it's an interesting place to sail and that was one of the highlights for us."
Bay Series
Over the weekend spectators could catch the action of the keelboat classes' starts and finishes off the Nelson Bay breakwall then head up to the Bay Sailing Centre where 90 high-performance dinghies were racing across four classes.
Ben Austin on Shoobydoowah was a model of consistency in the RS Aero with five bullets, with Unwarranted (Graham Baxendale) and RATmobile (Gary Ratcliffe) slotting into second and third.
James Bevis, sailing Jimmy Wong, was equally impressive in the Finn class, finishing with four bullets and a second to clinch the class honours, from Rob McMillan's NB Sailsports and Matt Visser's Anika 100.
Aboard his OK Dinghy Slake, Brett Morris held on to his lead from Mark Skelton (791) who notched a bullet in the final race, while Paul Foster (Toxic) rounded-out the OK podium.
In the Mixed Division the two Spirals of Smooth Operator (Joshua Passafaro) and The Dolphins are in the Jacuzzi (Steve Donovan) scooped the honours with first and second respectively, with the ILCA6 Kick (Peter Heywood) posting his best result, fifth, on the final race to secure third in the 30-strong fleet.
In wrapping-up the final event for Sail Port Stephens for 2026, founding Regatta Director Paul O'Rourke promised the 2027 20th-anniversary edition of one of the most popular regattas on the Australian sailing calendar would be even bigger and better. That's good news for many sailors and a catalyst to book accommodation in this slice of sailing paradise.
Results can be found at www.sailportstephens.com.au/results
Sail Port Stephens is supported by the NSW Government tourism agency Destination NSW, Port Stephens Council and subsidiary sponsors.