Silver Fern

This will be a fourth Sydney Hobart for the comfortable Silver Fern, which finished 15^th on PHS last year. In the 2023 race she was 14^th on PHS after placing 16^th in her maiden Hobart in 2022. David Hows contested two Sydney Hobarts with his former yacht, Ocean Gem, before buying Silver Fern, a 30-ton steel yacht.

She was originally built as a Birdsall 60 in 1981, before being redesigned by Brett Bakewell-White, extended to 72ft and relaunched in 2004. She circumnavigated the globe in 2005-2016 before Hows bought the yacht in 2020. Similar to Salt Lines (racing as Wind Shift this year) in many respects, Silver Fern beat her adversary over the line by four and a half hours last year.

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