Southerly change sets up tactical test for Flinders Islet Race
by Cruising Yacht Club of Australia 25 Sep 06:42 BST
26 September 2026
Flinders Islet Race 2025 © Ashley Dart / CYCA
Eighty-eight nautical miles to a rocky island off Port Kembla, and a forecast that has navigators sweating as they flick between models.
On Saturday 26 September, the Audi Centre Sydney Blue Water Pointscore fleet gathers for the second race of the 2026/27 pointscore. The Flinders Islet Race is short by offshore standards but far from simple. The fleet starts at 1000hrs, threads out through the Heads and turns south. It sails past the cliffs of the Royal National Park and the escarpment above Wollongong, rounds Flinders Islet a mile east of Port Kembla, then races back home to Sydney Harbour.
With Back 2 Black, winner of the season-opening Noakes Sydney Gold Coast Yacht Race, back on the start line, Flinders Islet is where the series starts to take shape.
Kites up and then the change
Every model agrees on the start. A light north to north-easterly of 5 - 9 knots will be on the Harbour and along Sydney's shoreline. It builds through the morning to 13 -19 knots, with more pressure the further offshore the fleet goes. That means kites up and a VMG downwind run south.
The question is what comes up the coast to meet them. A southerly change is pushing north, and the models disagree on when it reaches Flinders Islet. The earliest has it arriving around 1700hrs, and others bring it in later. The southerly is expected to blow in the mid-20s, possibly gusting into the low 30s. As always, the exact timing and the transition between the two breezes are hard to pin down.
That sets up a potential dream scenario. A boat that reaches Flinders Islet just as the southerly arrives could run downwind the whole way down, round the island, and run downwind the whole way home. Arrive early and you're beating north into the northerly until the change finds you. Arrive late and you're beating south into the southerly just to reach the mark.
The big boats will almost certainly be around well before the change, leaving them a stretch of upwind work on the way home. They'll finish earlier, but on corrected time the race might belong to the mid and back of the fleet.
So is this a small-boat race?
You can track the fleet here.