Adelaide to Port Lincoln Yacht Race

The Adelaide to Port Lincoln Yacht Race is South Australia's premier offshore contest — a passage of around 156 nautical miles run each February from Outer Harbour at Adelaide, around the foot of Yorke Peninsula and across Spencer Gulf to Port Lincoln on Boston Bay. It is the curtain-raiser to the Lincoln Week Regatta and one of the longest-running point-to-point ocean races in the country.

What it is

The race is a true offshore passage — a single, continuous leg that sends the fleet out of the relative shelter of Gulf St Vincent and into the open water at the bottom of the gulfs. Where a regatta is sailed in short windward-leeward laps close to a club, this is an endurance test: navigators must back tide, breeze and headland against one another for the better part of a day and a night. If you are new to the distinction, our guide to grand prix yacht racing explains how offshore and inshore formats differ.

Currently run as the Teakle Classic Adelaide to Port Lincoln Yacht Race, the event regularly draws around fifty boats — a broad church of dedicated offshore racers, cruiser-racers and fast multihulls. The start is hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of South Australia at Adelaide, and the finish belongs to the Port Lincoln Yacht Club on Boston Bay, which then runs the Lincoln Week Regatta. The two events together form South Australia's biggest week of keelboat sailing.

History

The first race was sailed in 1950. The idea was to give Adelaide boats a reason to come around the foot of Yorke Peninsula and to spend time visiting Port Lincoln and its surrounds. That inaugural year, Seevogel took line honours, and a rivalry between the two ports was soon born.

The race has been sailed annually ever since, and the 2025 edition marked the 75th running — a milestone few Australian ocean races reach. The Lincoln Week Regatta was added in 1976 to keep the visiting fleet racing once it had arrived, and the combined event has anchored the South Australian summer calendar in the decades since.

The course

The fleet starts off Outer Harbour, at the northern reach of Gulf St Vincent, and heads south down the gulf. The decisive stretch comes at the foot of Yorke Peninsula, where boats round into Investigator Strait and commit to the crossing of Spencer Gulf — open water exposed to whatever the Southern Ocean is sending up. The finish lies across the gulf at Port Lincoln, tucked inside the sheltered waters of Boston Bay.

It is a navigator's race. The wind regularly swings from a downwind run out of Gulf St Vincent to a hard beat across Spencer Gulf, and the gulfs carry their own tidal sets that reward local knowledge. Conditions range from glassy calms that strand the fleet to the cold, wet southerlies that can make the crossing genuinely demanding. The familiar terms used to describe all of this are set out in our sailing terms glossary.

The fleet and classes

Entries are usually divided across several handicap bands so that very different boats can compete on fair terms. The fleet typically splits into PHS, IRC, AMS and ORC divisions, plus a double-handed division for short-handed crews and an offshore multihull division. Multihulls and monohulls are started separately, with the multihulls away first.

This is the opposite number to a one-design yacht racing event — a mixed handicap fleet rather than identical boats — so understanding the rating systems matters. If the alphabet soup of IRC, ORC and AMS is unfamiliar, our explainer on IRC versus ORC handicap racing breaks down how each measures a boat and turns elapsed time into corrected time. The modern grand-prix machines that contest line honours sit at the fast end of this spectrum, while sportsboats such as the Melges 40 are built for shorter inshore courses.

Line honours versus handicap

As with most offshore races, there are two prizes worth chasing. Line honours goes to the first boat physically across the finish line at Port Lincoln — almost always one of the largest, fastest yachts in the fleet, and the result that makes the headlines. The handicap win, decided on corrected time once each boat's rating is applied, is the one most crews actually target, because it rewards how well a boat was sailed rather than simply how big it is.

That distinction is what keeps a modest cruiser-racer in genuine contention against a maxi. Multihull line honours and handicap results are scored separately again. If the difference between crossing first and winning on handicap is new to you, our guide to line honours versus handicap walks through exactly how the two results are calculated and why they so often go to different boats.

How to enter

Entry is online through the organising clubs in the lead-up to the February start. Boats must satisfy the Notice of Race, which sets the relevant Australian Sailing offshore safety category, the required safety equipment, a valid handicap certificate for the division entered and a suitably experienced crew. Because this is an offshore passage rather than a sheltered club race, the safety and qualification requirements are more demanding than for inshore events — read the current Notice of Race in full and allow time to complete safety audits before the deadline. Many crews enter the Lincoln Week Regatta at the same time, since the two events are designed to flow together. Our overview of the wider season on the programme page sets out where this race sits in the calendar.

How to follow

An official online race tracker carries every entry live across Spencer Gulf, so supporters ashore can watch positions, speeds and the tactical splits unfold in real time through the night. Results, photography and social updates are published through the event website and the clubs' channels as boats finish and the Lincoln Week racing begins. To read more about our own campaign, visit the boat page.