Ocean Racer Awards Ian Mainsbridge

Commodore Little regularly campaigns his Farr/IC45 Bounder in the UK, US and the Mediterranean, but this will be the first time he has competed in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race.

Bringing most of his regular crew with him, he has chartered the 1999 Sydney Hobart Race winner Sting (ex Yendys), a Farr 49, and re-named it Bounder for 628 nautical mile ocean classic starting next Friday, 26 December.

“In Britain, the reputation of the Hobart is second to none,” he says.  “It is one of those races on the ‘Tombstone Tick List’”, and with daughter Nicola currently studying for an MBA at Macquarie University in Sydney’s northern suburbs, it was an opportunity too good to miss.

It will also give him a chance to catch up with the Aussie sailors who lifted international yachting’s holy grail, the Admiral’s Cup, earlier in the year.

In many ways that piece of Australian larceny was just the sort of fillip for international yachting Little is looking for. 

Over the past two decades the sheer expense of getting yachts and teams across the world to events like the Admiral’s Cup and Australia’s own Southern Cross Cup has seen a steady decline in the number of national teams competing, but Commodore Little is hopeful of turning that around. 

“Clubs like the RORC and the CYCA all share the same objective,” he says. “We want to recreate the international circuit.  Fortunately it has become much cheaper to transport crews and yachts now than it was twenty years ago.”

So will we see a British team at the Southern Cross Cup next year?  “I can’t tell yet, but I’d like to believe there could be.”

Guiding the English south will be experienced Australian yachtsman Andrew Cape, who has already savoured line honours victories in past races on Sayonara and Morning Glory and class wins in Beau Geste and Ragamuffin.

Local knowledge combined with this hugely experienced British crew should make Bounder a boat to watch come Boxing Day.