Wharington calls time as Wild Thing 100 beaten by brutal Hobart seas

Wild Thing 100 is back in Sydney - 2025 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race © Rolex / Andrea Francolini

Grant Wharington has been around offshore racing long enough to know when persistence turns into risk. In the early hours of Saturday morning, punching into a brutal sea state off the New South Wales coast, the skipper of Wild Thing 100 made the call to retire from the 2025 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race — a decision shaped as much by experience as by the conditions crashing down on his bow.

"We've recovered. We're back on the mother ship," Wharington said shortly after returning to Sydney.

"Just disappointed about the Great Race and not being able to finish it this year."

The retirement followed a punishing stretch of "ugly, nasty" seas that exposed the limits of both boat and crew in the 80th race which will long be remembered for its punishing conditions.

For periods, Wild Thing 100 showed its pace. In flatter water, Wharington said the team clawed back significant time on rivals, briefly believing the race was turning in their favour.

Then the conditions changed again.

"As soon as we got back into the bumpy water, we just lost so much time," he said. "There's no way our lighter boat is going to beat the heavier boats in those sorts of conditions. They're putting miles on you every hour. It was just painful."

The turning point came after a runner block failure — the runner jumping the sheet, destroying the block and damaging the runner tail. A temporary repair kept the yacht moving, but for Wharington, it raised deeper questions about acceptable risk.

"I don't like makeshift repairs anymore," he said. "I'm a lot more risk-averse than I used to be."

That caution is grounded in hard realities. The towering rig above Wild Thing 100 represents an enormous investment.

Wharington at the Line Honours Press Conference on 24 December - 2025 Rolex Sydney Hobart Race - photo © Rolex / Andrea Francolini

"When you've got four million dollars' worth of mast in the air, you analyse things a bit more carefully than you once might have," he said.

At around 0330 hours, the decision crystallised. Sailing bow-on into steep, breaking seas at roughly 13 knots, the yacht slammed repeatedly into oncoming waves. Celestial V70 crossed ahead, erasing what had once been a comfortable lead.

"It was just crunching — nasty, nasty conditions," Wharington said. "You're trying to beat a 70-footer designed exactly for those conditions. That's the perfect Hobart boat when there's plenty of breeze on."

He was blunt about the broader reality of offshore handicapping.

"You can't have a measurement system that accurately measures two completely different boats across all conditions," he said. "That's just the reality of it."

With concerns mounting for the boat and the prospects on corrected time evaporating, the call was made to retire.

Now back at Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, the crew is taking stock. Spirits are bruised but intact. A few drinks marked the end of the campaign, and plans remain unchanged for the New Year, to be spent aboard the support vessel already waiting in Sydney.

"We'll lick our wounds," Wharington said. "Then we'll go back and see what we can do to make the boat heavier for next year."