Team of the Year (Formerly Offshore Sailor of the Year)
2023-24 Olivia Price and Evie Haseldine
Olivia had been retired from Olympic campaigns for 5 years when the opportunity came up to partner with Evie, who was seeking to ignite her dream and compete at her first Olympic Games. After joining forces, their intuitive relationship has been a key part of their success, with the pair winning a bronze medal at the 2023 Sailing World Championships, and securing Australia a quota and ultimately compete at the Paris Olympics in the Women’s Skiff 49er class.
2022-23 Australia SailGP Team
The Australia SailGP Team, led by Tom Slingsby, completed an unprecedented three-peat in Season 3 of SailGP when they won the Grand Final in San Francisco. No other team has won a SailGP series in the three years the competition has existed, marking Australia's absolute dominance in the annual series. Australia won 4 of the 11 regattas throughout the season to finish atop the overall series leaderboard before going on to win the 3-boat Grand Final Race.
2021-22 Lisa Blair
Having sailed over 80,000 nautical miles over her career, the list of offshore sailing accomplishments on Lisa Blair’s sailing resume is extensive. Earlier this year she broke the world record for the fastest unassisted Antarctic circumnavigation making the journey in 92 days - 10 days faster than the previous record holder.
2020-21 Duncan Hine
Alive, skippered by Duncan Hine, dominated in the offshore event space during the award period. They finished the L2H the race with an elapsed time of 1 day, 8 hours, 2 minutes and 16 seconds, beating the previous race record set in 2008 by 1 hour, 31 minutes and 42 seconds. They also won PHS in the King of the Derwent Yacht Race and PHS and IRC by over 3 hours on corrected time in the Bruny Island Ocean Race.
2018-19 Matt Allen AM
Matt Allen has taken numerous yacht race and series victories over the past 12 months in his Botin 52, Ichi Ban, including: 1st IRC and ORCi Flinders Islet Race, 1st IRC and ORCi Newcastle Bass Race, 1st IRC and ORCi Bird Island Race, 2nd IRC and 3rd ORCi Cabbage Tree Island Race, 1st IRC and ORCi Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore, 3rd IRC Div 1 Festival of Sails, 1st IRC and PHS Adelaide to Port Lincoln Race, 1st IRC and PHS Port Lincoln Race Week, 1st IRC Australian Yachting Championships, 1st IRC Overall Lendlease Brisbane to Hamilton Island Yacht Race. Additionally, Matt and his team came 2nd overall on IRC in the Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race and 5th overall on IRC in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. Matt jointly won the 2018 CYCA Ocean Racer of the Year Award, with Wendy Tuck. His Botin 52 Ichi Ban was named ‘Yacht of the Year’ by the Royal Ocean Racing Club in the UK in November 2018, for which they received the Somerset Memorial Trophy.
2017-18 Wendy Tuck
Wendy Tuck broke new ground for our sport this season, becoming the first female skipper to ever win an around the world yacht race, and, in doing do, capturing the hearts and imagination of people worldwide. Wendy won the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, an eleven-month, 40,000-nautical-mile ocean challenge, with her Sanya Serenity Coast crew – paving the way for the next generation to follow her lead. This win followed on from Wendy being the first female skipper in the Race’s history 2015/16 edition. In addition to this Wendy won the prestigious Jane Tate Memorial Trophy as the first female skipper across the line in the 2017 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, which doubled as Race 5 in the Clippers.