Before Elizabeth Tucker set sail in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race as skipper of the event’s only all-women crew, she took time to walk the docks at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia.
She wanted to savor the atmosphere, aware of the significance of her return to the Sydney Hobart, which she had raced once before, in 2021, as a crewmember aboard Eve, a Swan 65.
At the time, Tucker — who was born in England, where she grew up in a pub, but has lived in Sydney for 17 years — had minimal sailing experience. She had taken up ocean sailing barely a year earlier, but her ambition belied her resume.
Fueled by a dream of racing solo around the world, Tucker left her career in finance and set her sights on the open sea.
Fast-forward to today, and Tucker is the owner-skipper of the Class40 First Light. While fully immersed in the demands of the 80th Sydney Hobart, her broader ambition remains fixed on racing in the 2027-28 Global Solo Challenge.
Her walk along the CYCA docks before Friday’s 1pm (AEDT) start gave her a moment to pause and reflect on the path that brought her there.
“I was walking the docks, and I was saying to one of the crew, ‘I feel something. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s excitement or nerves,’” Tucker told The Athletic. “I try not to think about this stuff too much. I’m definitely quite emotional. It’s a big thing.
“It’s a big thing for all of us on First Light. I can’t really believe it, to be honest.”
Tucker, second from right, with participants of the Rolex Sydney Hobart (Wendell Teodoro/Getty Images)
At 6pm (AEDT) on Saturday, First Light was still in the 628-nautical-mile Sydney Hobart, lying 101st in a fleet that had been steadily reduced by breakages and seasickness.
Positioned just southeast of Jervis Bay on the New South Wales south coast, First Light was about 200 nautical miles behind the race leader, Master Lock Comanche.
After taking the lead from LawConnect on Friday evening, Master Lock Comanche was well into Bass Strait, as were the other contenders for line honors (first across the finish line).
Behind Master Lock Comanche in second and third were the 100-footers LawConnect and SHK Scallywag 100, followed by the New York Yacht Club’s 80-footer Lucky, the 100-footer Palm Beach XI, and last year’s corrected-time winner Celestial V70 in sixth place.
Meanwhile, Wild Thing 100, the fifth of five 100-footers to start, suffered rigging issues on Saturday morning and became the first of several retirements as conditions took their toll.
Along with Wild Thing 100, Saturday retirees by 6pm (AEDT) were Awen (forestay), Trouble & Strife (engine), Troubador (illness), Roring Forty (illness), Moneypenny (lost life raft), Mazu Denali’s Little Helper (battery), Philosopher (rudder), Wine Dark Sea (various issues), URM (hull damage), Koa (head foil), and Vixen Racing (crew rib injury).
For those boats still racing, the upwind conditions made life at sea anything but comfortable as crews braced for a second night offshore.
LawConnect, with Australian Olympic swimming star Ian Thorpe on board as crew, lost time to mainsheet damage and halyard issues on the first night.
LawConnect lost time on day two (Ayush Kumar/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
Palm Beach XI was forced to stop for more than an hour while her crew cleared fishing nets from her new keel and daggerboards. Other crews reported widespread seasickness.
On First Light, four of the six crew members suffered seasickness, but spirits remained high.
“It was a rather unpleasant night,” Tucker said in an Instagram post from sea, adding that she expected “much the same” over the next day in the bumpy southerly conditions.
“But the body gets a bit used to it after the first 24 hours, so it shouldn’t be as hard on us.”
While Tucker is racing with a crew in the Sydney Hobart, the event is providing racing experience aboard First Light that should pay dividends in the Global Solo Challenge.
“That is the plan,” Tucker said. “That’s what I’m working toward. It’s really about learning as much as I can now to set myself up to go solo.”
But the Sydney Hobart also serves a second purpose through her Za Ocean Racing program.
The program that attracts crowdfunding support is aimed at not only helping her Global Solo Challenge preparation, but at creating greater opportunities for women in offshore sailing too.
“This crew is very experienced,” Tucker said. “They’re women who want to learn as much as they can about offshore sailing. They’re already experienced, but they want to know more about the boat.
“They share the goal of stepping up and being more than just a crewmember — of being part of the decision-making on tactics and sail choices.”
This year, women account for 12 percent of crews, but Tucker wants far greater representation.
“There are so many more women out there who want to do it, and they can,” she said.
“We all know women sailors are perfectly capable of getting down there to Hobart. There are plenty of men going who have less experience. So it’s not a lack of ability. It’s about getting the opportunities.”
How First Light fares will reflect the collective effort of the crew of six that includes Katie O’Mara, Annie Stevenson, Bayley Taylor, Malin Ludwig and Maddie Lyons.
Tucker and Lyons are part of First Light’s all-women crew (Wendell Teodoro/Getty Images)
“Yes — that’s exactly what it is,” Tucker said. “Even though we’ve all done Hobarts before, this is the first time it’s riding on us as an all-women crew.”
Tucker already has one eye on the 2027 Global Solo Challenge and its cost. “We want to get to Hobart ideally without too many breakages,” she said. “If we do get breakages, there might be some tears over the financial ramifications.”
She will then focus on building miles aboard First Light in preparation for the solo challenge. She sailed 12,000 nautical miles from Spain — where she purchased the boat — to Australia. She completed the 70-day passage with First Light’s former owner, Cole Brauer, the world record holder for the fastest solo, nonstop circumnavigation in a Class40.
Tucker then raced First Light to 10th overall in the Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Race and to 18th overall and second in division in the Sydney to Gold Coast Yacht Race.
But, as Tucker knows, there is a significant difference between delivering a boat point to point and racing it, especially solo around the world.
“On a delivery sail, like from Spain to Australia, you don’t tend to go upwind unless you have to,” Tucker said. “You can ease back a little and conserve yourself.
“But in a race,” she added, “you’ve got to balance the pushing and the conservation.”
Tucker will no doubt better understand that fine line in the days ahead.