Min River wins overall honours in Sydney to Hobart after extraordinary protest upheld

Min River has been crowned overall Sydney to Hobart champion after the race committee upheld an extraordinary protest on Wednesday morning.

The double-hander has now created history as the first female-skippered yacht to take out the overall handicap and win the Tattersall Cup.

Frenchmen Michel Quintin and Yann Rigal thought they had won the title after spending more than 93 hours at sea on BNC - my::NET / LEON, one of the fleet’s smallest boats, before arriving at Constitution Dock at 10.40am AEDT on Tuesday.

They were the 33rd crew across the line but the first double-handed yacht — a craft sailed by just two people — to make it to Hobart.

But their celebrations were put on hold when Min River, which finished 54 minutes on handicap behind BNC, lodged a protest for a potential sail breach.

The committee upheld the protest and issued a penalty of 65 minutes, which relegated BNC to second place behind new overall winner Min River.

The breach related to the use of a pole to secure their spinnaker sail two nautical miles out from the finish.

The complex rule states “no sail sheet be sheeted over or through any device that exerts outward pressure on a sheet or clew of a sail at a point from which ... a vertical line would fall outside the hull”.

The committee found that BNC used “its A1.5 asymmetric spinnaker, with the tack connected to the boat’s bowsprit and a spar connected to the sheet at one end and the mast at the other end. The spar exerted outward pressure on the sheet at a point from which, with the boat upright, a vertical line would fall outside the hull or deck.”

They added that it only set the sail in this manner for the final two nautical miles of the race, but gained three to five minutes when compared to sailing in compliance with the rules.

“That penalty is absolutely proportionate,” cace committee chairman Lee Goddard told reporters in Hobart.

“They’ve used their spinnaker in an inappropriate way.

“They did not deliberately do it.

“But it was photographed with two nautical miles to go.”

Goddard added he was “incredibly proud” of Min River and BNC’s crews.

“I’m sure for them (BNC) it’s very disappointing ... I’m not sure I’d describe it (the overall result) as disappointing. The rules are the rules,” he said.

The international jury made the ruling after an hour-long hearing at the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania in Hobart.

Shortly before the protest hearing, Lin told the ABC that Min River’s complaint was lodged after people sent her video of DNC’s configuration as it finished.

It is not the first time a frontrunner has lost out on a trophy.

In 2017, Wild Oats XI lost line honours after being penalised an hour for being involved in a near collision at the start of the race.

BNC’s handicap time, which is calculated on a range of factors including yacht size, was just 54 minutes ahead of Min River.

Both are double-handed yachts, crewed by just two people, and were among the smallest in the Sydney to Hobart fleet.

Min River arrived in Sydney 2023 and was named by Lin after the river in China which flows through the province where her parents lived.

Quintin, who represented France in windsurfing at the 1988 Olympics, and Rigal had celebrated dockside on Tuesday morning after being the first double-handed yacht to cross the finish line.

They spent four nights at sea and battled without wind detection instruments after some of their electronic equipment went down while crossing Bass Strait.

Master Lock Comanche claimed line honours in 80th edition of the race on Sunday after holding off two fellow supermaxis in a dogfight off Tasmania’s east coast.

More than a quarter of the starting fleet of 128 yachts were forced to retire in brutal early upwind sailing.

Five yachts remained at sea on Wednesday at 11am AEDT, with NSW 69-footer Wind Shift bringing up the tail and not scheduled to complete the race until Saturday.

- with AAP