Ichi Ban has celebrated more blue water success, with Matt Allen’s Botin 52 winning Overall honours (IRC) in the 74th Gladstone Ports Corporation Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race.

The 2021 Rolex Sydney Hobart overall winner finished strongly to beat Philip Turner’s Reichel/Pugh 66 Alive (skippered by Duncan Hine) by 24 minutes on corrected time, with CYCA Treasurer Sam Haynes’ TP52 Celestial just five minutes further adrift in third.

“It was pretty close in the early stages of the race, then we blew up a couple of spinnakers and that put us back a fair way, so we had to fight our way back against Celestial,” said CYCA Life Member Matt Allen.

“We were a little closer in shore, with less adverse current. In the reaching legs, we had good lengths through that reach across and kept extending through the early hours of the morning and to the finish line.”

This was a third Brisbane to Gladstone win in five attempts for Matt and his crew, having won in 2017 on his former TP52 and in 2018 on his current boat.

It was a 308 nautical mile sprint north, with Peter Harburg’s Reichel/Pugh 100 Black Jack (skippered by Mark Bradford) claiming Line Honours in a blistering time of 16 hours, 13 minutes and 56 seconds to break their own race record from 2018.

The 2021 Rolex Sydney Hobart Line Honours winner also won Line Honours in record time in last week’s Pittwater to Coffs Harbour Race.

Black Jack was pushed most of the way by Alive, who was just 50 minutes behind in second over the line.

Celestial also set a new record for a conventionally ballasted yacht in 19 hours, 24 minutes and 52 seconds, beating the previous best time set by Ichi Ban in 2018.