Limit was the star attraction of the Rolex Trophy as Alan Brierty and his crew got a gun start and cleared out on their main rivals, Brierty making good his threat that he would make up for the rest of his series and turn the tables on Loki.

The Australian’s helmsman, Gavin Brady (NZ), steered the RP62 to a good midline start to be third boat leaving Sydney Heads and coming home in good time to win the race overall.

Wild Oats XI was the first to crack a kite as they rounded South Head, with the Peter Millard/John Honan owned super maxi Lahana snapping at their heels. To the surprise of everyone, Alan Brierty’s RP62 Limit was hanging off Lahana’s transom, leaving her contemporaries well behind her.

Limit’s crew kept their heads together to beat nemesis and near-sistership, Loki, the RP63 owned by Stephen Ainsworth, home by 31 seconds, enough for Limit to claim overall honours after Loki’s defeat of them over the past two days.

The series winner, Hooligan, the TP52 owned by Marcus Blackmore (NSW), had a few hiccups on the course and finished the race fourth overall after struggling to get their spinnaker aloft and then tearing it. However, their three wins of the five-race series guaranteed their overall victory and Blackmore was still smiling. “Not our best day, but it doesn’t matter, we won the series,” he said.

Second overall behind Hooligan was Loki, with Melbourne yachtsman Rob Hanna sailing his TP52 Shogun into third place overall.

The day’s 19 nautical mile race and the rest of the Rolex Trophy was an important one. It is an indication of how one’s chances might pan out in the Rolex Sydney Hobart at the end of the month and has always acted as a form guide for the race south.

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