Three very different campaigns are in the running for the top team prize at this year's Australian Sailing Awards, and picking a winner looks genuinely hard.
Brett Burvill and Max Puttman from WA, Sydney-based match racing crew Kairos Racing, and Nacra 17 Olympic pair Brin Liddell OLY and Rhiannan Brown OLY are the finalists for Team of the Year at the 2026 Australian Sailing Awards. The ceremony runs at the Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour on Friday, October 30, with winners set to join an honour roll that includes Olympians, world champions and legends of the sport.
Burvill and Puttman's case rests on a January win most multihull sailors can only dream about. The Jervoise Bay Sailing Club duo took out the Formula 18 Catamaran World Championship against a 76-boat fleet, beating catamaran royalty Glenn Ashby and Darren Bundock along the way. Burvill has raced Formula 18s for more than 25 years. This was his first world title in the class.
Kairos Racing's story is arguably the standout. Skippered by 23-year-old Cole Tapper, the Sydney crew of Max Brennan, Jack Frewin, Nathan Gulliksen, George Richardson and Hamish Vass won the Congressional Cup at Long Beach Yacht Club in May, becoming only the second Australian team to claim it in the event's 61-year history. Peter Gilmour was the last, back in 1988.
They scraped into the semi-finals in fourth place, then clawed back from 0-2 down against World No. 1 and two-time winner Chris Poole to win 3-2. The final against defending champion Eric Monnin was a 3-0 sweep, and they finished the event 6-0 on the last day. Remarkable form for a team that finished eighth in 2024 and third in 2025, and the youngest team to win the Congressional Cup since international competitors were first invited.
Then there's the Olympic pairing. Paris 2024 Olympians Brin Liddell and Rhiannan Brown put together a consistent 2025-26 season in the Nacra 17, finishing inside the top 10 at all six major international regattas they contested.
Fourth place turned up three times, at the 2025 World Championships, the 2026 European Championships and the Sailing Grand Slam Kiel Week. Other results include eighth at the Sailing Grand Slam Trofeo Princesa Sofía, seventh at the Sailing Grand Slam French Olympic Week and tenth at the 2026 World Championships, along with victory at Sail Melbourne. Training alongside the Australian Nacra 17 squad, the Wangi Amateur Sailing Club pair are building toward their Los Angeles 2028 campaign, with the gap to the podium narrowing.
Past winners of the award include Team Magpie, the Australian SailGP Team, Lisa Blair and Wendy Tuck, giving some sense of the company these three finalists are keeping.
