The waiting game begins for defending champion Celestial V70

65.5 hours after the start

The final result was almost unprecedented, Haynes claiming his second Tattersall Cup (he had earlier won in 2022 on his TP52 Celestial) by a staggering corrected time margin of 9 hours, 44 minutes and 42 seconds, the second biggest margin in history. 

This year, in the 80th edition of the Great Race South, Haynes and Celestial V70 were sixth to reach the finish line, on the River Derwent in front of Castray Esplanade in Hobart, and resigned to a long wait before their Overall fate is to be decided.  

Finishing in two days 16hrs 14mins 34secs, Celestial V70 provisionally sat 24th on the Overall standings. They were the ‘leader in the clubhouse’, so to speak, with so much still in the hands of the wind gods down the Tasmanian east coast, the current leaders Min River, Borderline, Toucan (all sailing double handed) and almost a dozen others.  

The impending confirmation of their Overall result may take a day or two, but it might not seem as long as the hours Haynes and Celestial V70 spent bobbing in the Derwent this morning. It was painful. No wind, very, very little progress, and the gut wrenching feeling that an historic second title as the sitting CYCA Commodore – and a career third - might be slipping away. 

Such was the struggle, with less than 2.2 nautical miles to the finish, Celestial V70 was actually drifting backwards. Oh, the pain.  

“The feeling (was) like so frustrating,” Haynes said. 

“We got parked up off Tasman (Island), no wind and it just died out there.  

“Then we managed to get some really good breeze and went across Storm Bay really quickly, had hope that the gradient was still going to be in, and then as soon as we got in the door, it's just died out and we were just going all over the place trying to find wind that was coming from all different angles and places.” 

Celestial V70 sat within a pitching wedge of the finish line for almost 20 minutes, desperately trying to end what had been a frustrating evening and ensure they took provisional control of their Division from Bryon Ehrhart’s 88 footer Lucky, which had finished just after 2000 hours last night. Finally, they did, by a relative sliver. After 628 nautical miles, the margin was one minute 17 seconds. 

“We thought we had a fair bit of time on Lucky, and after lots of sail changes and different wind directions out there, all the way up the Derwent, we finally got to Garrow Light.  

“We’d been looking at Garrow Light for hours and hours and hours and just creeping up to it about one knot over the ground with the breeze against the current. And then when we got to it, said, ‘oh, there's a breeze line’. (We) got into that breeze line, and then we knew that we had a chance of beating Lucky's time.  

“And then that breeze died out, of course, but we did get to the little finish line with about, I don't know, 20 minutes on Lucky, but we couldn't cross the line because there's just no breeze right there.  

“Then the current was just taking us away and the wind came around from the other side, and we had to gybe, flip the battens, and we finally got the hooter and our time’s one minute less than theirs.” 

Now the wait begins. Haynes said he was more focussed on those in his division (Division 0) in the first instance, before attention turned to the surging Double Handed fleet. 

“A lot of those (Double Handed) boats are a long way away,” Haynes said. 

“There's a lot of those boats in that number, 200 to 250 miles away, but the ones like Callisto (Division 1) and Bacchanal (Division 4), they’re two boats, which you could see could doing it.  

“So, I'm sort of expecting someone else to kind of take it. I haven't really seen where No Limit is. They’re in my division. I haven't seen whether they've got a chance of beating us or not, because if we win the division, that's obviously quite a big thing.” 

For the crew of Celestial V70, the immediate future will be spent with loved ones, enjoying a quiet celebration for completing what has been a tough race – and just the odd few moments refreshing the Race Tracker, with an eye firmly on their rivals. 

At 0630 this morning, 75-odd minutes after Celestial V70 completed the course, No Limit had 48.4 nautical miles to go.