Thirty-seven yachts have entered the 2026/27 Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore, launching a season-long campaign that runs from July right through to December.
This is not a title decided in an afternoon. Points build across six races of wildly different character before the fleet is finally sorted out on the River Derwent after the Rolex Sydney Hobart.
The season opens on Saturday 25 July with the Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, a 384 nautical mile Category 2 test that starts at Nielsen Park on Sydney Harbour and runs past Cape Byron Lighthouse, the most easterly point of the Australian mainland, before finishing under the Gold Coast skyline. First points on the board. Long way still to go.
Two months pass before the fleet reconvenes for the Flinders Islet Race on Saturday 26 September, a shorter Category 3+ affair at 88 nautical miles. It heads south to Flinders Islet near Port Kembla Harbour in Wollongong before turning back for Sydney Harbour.
Then comes the Tollgate Islands Race on Friday 16 October, the third longest race of the series at 260 nautical miles and Category 2. It's a Friday evening start, south to the Tollgate Islands off Batemans Bay and back to the finish off Watsons Bay, a good rehearsal for what's still to come.
Bird Island is next, on Saturday 14 November. At just 83 nautical miles it's the shortest race on the calendar, heading north to a spot roughly three nautical miles northeast of Norah Head before returning to Sydney Harbour. Weather permitting, crews might even sleep in their own beds that night, though any sailor will tell you it rarely works out that tidy.
The last tune-up before Hobart is the Cabbage Tree Island Race on Friday 4 December, 172 nautical miles and Category 2, and a handy way to bank qualifying miles for the Rolex Sydney Hobart. The fleet sails north from Sydney Harbour on Friday evening to Cabbage Tree Island, just north of Port Stephens, then turns for home. After that, there's nothing left but the main event.
Which brings it to the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race on Friday 26 December, 628 nautical miles and Category 1. This is the one race in the series that can't be discarded from the pointscore, every other result can be dropped, this one can't. First place scores zero points, so a strong showing here isn't a bonus, it's essential. The champion is crowned on the River Derwent.
The Gold Coast race is just months away. With 37 yachts already on the entry list, preparations for the new season are well under way.
