Nautilass wins fifth straight but Platupus shakes up handicap in Racing C Race 6

Two more boats joined the Racing Group C fleet for Race 6: Blue Newport's Enhanse, a Hanse 370e, and Max Newport's Craig Loomes design Rock N Roll. That brought the total to fourteen boats on the start line.

Heading into the race, the group was already split across three distinct contests. On the water, Nautilass had built a commanding position through four consecutive line honours victories, with Young Magic sitting closest in pursuit and Ilex consistently near the front. The mid fleet was a tighter affair, with The Racoon and Heartlight separated by the narrowest of margins. Handicap scoring told a different story, with Young Magic leading on both EHC and PHRF and carrying strong momentum into the closing stages of the series.

Nautilass crossed first again, completing Race 6 in 1 hour 39 minutes 7 seconds, just 19 seconds clear of Young Magic. Five straight elapsed time wins underline both her outright pace and her consistency across the series. Giovanni Belgrano brought Young Magic home second, while Heartlight produced one of her strongest performances of the week to finish third, a little over a minute behind the leading pair. The gap from first to third was just 1 minute 33 seconds, but after those three boats the fleet began to spread, with the next five finishers arriving across an 11-minute window. The mid-fleet compression that had defined earlier racing was finally breaking apart.

Nowhere was that spreading more evident than between The Racoon and Fifth Dimension. The two boats had traded positions all week, but in Race 6 The Racoon finished fourth while Fifth Dimension came home eighth, nearly eight minutes separating them. Cotton Bud continued her steady run of results in fifth, and Platupus delivered a sixth on the water.

The handicap results reshaped the picture entirely. On EHC, Platupus converted that mid-fleet crossing into a corrected time victory, with Heartlight second and Young Magic third. Nautilass, dominant on elapsed time, slipped to eighth on EHC, tightening the overall series considerably.

On PHRF, Young Magic remained unbeaten through six races, with Nautilass second and The Bondi Tram third.

One race remains. Nautilass continues to set the standard on elapsed time, but the handicap standings in Racing Group C are genuinely open, and the final race has far more than finishing positions to decide.