For Kinsale Yacht Club's Cian McCarthy, owner and co-skipper with Sam Hunt of the Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300, Cinnamon Girl – Eden Capital, the two-handed entry from Ireland, this will be their first Sydney-Hobart Race, one of ten international entries in this year's race that departs on St. Stephen's Day.

But he and Hunt have plenty of offshore racing experience behind them. Every year, they alternate by racing either the Fastnet or Round Ireland races.

Both also have some experience of Australian waters.

McCarthy raced in the 2000-2001 Clipper Round the World Race that included a leg finishing in Sydney.

Hunt crewed in the 2011 Sydney Hobart on the Beneteau First 40, Willyama from NSW, while living in Sydney.

“We have been sailing together for three or four years and have a nice kind of partnership,” said McCarthy.

For the race, the pair will not be sailing their Jeanneau Sun Fast 3300, also named Cinnamon Girl, which has dominated offshore racing in Ireland for two years. Instead, they have chartered the same design from Lee Condell in Sydney. Aside from renaming it Cinnamon Girl, they also changed the set-up, running 116 square metre A sails and the extended bowsprit from their boat.

Asked if he had any thoughts about the competition he will face in the two-handed division of which there are 18 entries, McCarthy said: “Not really. I think we're the only Europeans in the class; so, we wouldn't have raced against the other guys.

“We don't know what to expect. All we know is that we've prepared as well as we could.

“We're just going in with an open mind.”

The duo are not the only Irish either, as Irish sailors are crewing on a number of entries in this year's race as Afloat previously reported here

Tequila sunrise turns dream into reality for US entry in Rolex Sydney Hobart

Charles Devanneaux (second from the right) with his crew on Lenny Photo: Andrea Francolini

For years, sailing in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race was a dream for Charles Devanneaux, the US based French skipper of the US entry, Lenny.

But Devanneaux’s decision to finally commit to the 628 nautical mile race was a relatively quick one; albeit prompted by “a couple of drinks of tequila.”

“It's a dream, a dream to come,” Devanneaux said on Friday at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (CYCA) in Sydney.

Devanneaux’s dream of racing in the Sydney Hobart was spawned by a close friend sailing in the 1998 edition of the race where six lives were lost.

“One of my best friends did the 98’ race. Since that day, it has been on my bucket list,” said Devanneaux.

But his journey to Australia really took shape last year when discussing plans for Lenny’s maiden race, the 2023 Transpac from California to Hawaii in which it placed second on division.

Over drinks, a friend suggested to Devanneaux that he also sail in the Sydney Hobart.

Next morning, he woke to see a table covered in maps and charts and realised what he had committed himself too.

They had planned Lenny’s route from Hawaii to Sydney, and the Sydney-Hobart race itself.

“Honestly, it was after a couple of drinks of tequila,” Devanneaux confessed with a wry grin.

Devanneaux said his goal for his Sydney Hobart debut is to have “a clean and safe race” with Lenny and to “get to the end, to the finish line” on the Derwent River.

He played down Lenny’s winning prospects, labelling the boat as “fourth league” compared to the “first league” billing of the French entry, the NMYD 54, Teasing Machine.

Teasing Machine is French Flag Carrier in Sydney Hobart Race

Eric De Turckheim (in the red shirt) on his Teasing Machine Photo: Andrea Francolini

Eric De Turckheim, the French owner of Teasing Machine was quick to rebut his compatriot when asked about any rivalry between the two Frenchmen.

De Turckheim, for whom this year’s Sydney Hobart will be his third, after starts in 2016 (on a different boat) and 2018 with the current Teasing Machine, first replied: No comment.”

Then he added with a smile: “You know, we've seen so many times boats of any type of category winning very big races.”

Lenny and Teasing Machine are two of 10 international yachts in this year’s race. Boats are also representing Germany, Hong Kong (2), Ireland, New Caledonia, New Zealand (2).

The Sydney Hobart has long attracted international sailors keen to test their skills against the unique challenges of the Tasman Sea, Bass Strait and the Derwent River.

International yachts have claimed the Overall win on 14 occasions, the most recent being Jim Delegat’s New Zealand boat, Giacomo, in 2016.

JPK 10.80, Rockall from Germany Has Unfinished Business in Sydney Hobart

For Chris Opielok, skipper of the JPK 10.80, Rockall from Germany, this year’s race is about avenging the unfinished business of his debut in 2017.

That year and on a different boat - a TP52 - his race ended in Bass Strait due to boat damage.

“It was mission uncompleted,” Opielok said. “I would really like to finish this time. That would make me happy.

Chris Opielok at the International Entrants Press Conference Photo: Andrea Francolini

The Sun Fast 3300 Cinnamon Girl from Kinsale, sailed two-handed by Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt, has been cutting a successful swathe through Irish offshore racing for more than two years now. But in December, they'll be making the top-level scene on the other side of the world in the annual Sydney-Hobart race. Lee Condell, originally of Limerick but now Australian agent for several boat ranges, notably including Jeanneau and particularly the Sun Fast performance marque, has arranged the charter of a Sun Fast 3300, but she'll be setting key Cinnamon Girl sails, and using her trademark "extra-large bowsprit".

Taking the sails and bowsprit is only the half of it, for the successful duo sailors both have important families at home, so the word is that the Kinsale contingent flying down under will include a total of eight McCarthy and Hunt children...

Meanwhile, we hear whispers of other possible Irish involvement in the forthcoming end-of-year Sydney-Hobart major and have featured Trevor Smyth - formerly of Clontarf - who has already notched the win in the new Sydney-Auckland Race with Mick Martin on the TP52 Frantic. Trev will be right there again on Frantic in the race to Hobart.

If your participation in the race has been confirmed, please let us know at Afloat.ie, as we've found that Irish interest in this "Twixtmas Classic" is always at a very high level in the depths of winter.

Kinsale’s top two-handers Cian McCarthy and Sam Hunt with the Sunfast 3300 Cinnamon Girl seem to have already put in enough successful sailing in the season of 2022 to fulfil the ambitions of many crews for a whole year. And all that even if now - at mid-June - the Summer itself seems remarkably unenthusiastic about putting in an enduring appearance, whereas a cold and blustery Spring doesn’t realise that it has long out-stayed its welcome.

Back on the 20th May, when the new 240-mile Inishtearaght Race went off from their home port, the two shipmates and their fully-crewed rivals were sailing on what looked like a gloomy March day. And though they found some sunshine off the southwest seaboard while using rock-bound Inishtearaght for the first time as a race turning mark, by the time they got back to Kinsale the murk had closed in again. But the Cinnamon boys scarcely noticed, as they finished second on the water, took a good first on Corrected Time, and rounded out the month of May by becoming the Afloat.ie “Sailors of the Month”.

Job done. Cinnamon Girl back in Kinsale after being round the Blaskets, closing in on winning the Inish Tearaght race overall. Photo: Robert Bateman

But they were only getting going, for like all Sunfast 3300 crews, they’re campaigning the high-profile new boat whose public debut was most adversely affected by the pandemic. For sure, Cinnamon Girl and other hyper-keen Cork and Dublin Bay offshore boats did manage some sport with carefully restricted events like the Fastnet 450 during the easings of the lockdown. Yet these were almost under-the-radar happenings, not at all like the hell-for-leather competition you relish when putting a new boat of clearly great potential through her paces.

Thus this coming Saturday’s SSE Renewables Round Ireland Race from Wicklow has added appeal, with its sense of the last of the restrictions being thrown to the winds. And for the Cinnamon Girl and boys, this past weekend saw the buildup accelerating, with a record-breaking positioning passage from Kinsale to the East Coast in which they were whizzing along for hour after hour at speeds of 15 to 21 knots, even managing to see a sunset – albeit a rather watery one – as they made speed along the Wicklow coast.

(Above) Cinnamon Girl at the weekend, making 15-21 knots on passage from Kinsale to the East Coast

They’re a formidably experienced team. Cian McCarthy – having learned the ropes with Denis Doyle on Moonduster - has raced the Mini Transat. He got fourth in the first leg, but broke the forestay on week one of transatlantic second leg, yet raced on without a forestay for the rest of the crossing - perhaps a first Transatlantic crossing without a forestay. He also won the BT Global Challenge, raced open 40's as well as many Commodores Cup and Admirals Cup, and has five Round Irelands done previously - two of the double-handed.

Sam Hunt is also a Kinsale native, with broad background in dinghies and keelboats. He was the only civilian in the crew on the British Army boat for the last four Round Irelands. Additionally, he’d lots of wins in Match and Team racing, did a 470 Olympic campaign with Gerbil Owens in 2005 - 06, and has also raced with the Mumm 30's on Mammy, and the Melges with Team Barbarians, while logging successful experience in SB20s and 1720s, and racing the legendary Tiamat in IRC and Commodores Cup series.

While this will be Sam’s fifth Round Ireland, it will be his first double-handed, and he and Cian McCarthy seem to be melding as a formidable duo. They’ve optimised their prospects with in-depth input on sails from Nin O’Leary, and now all they need going round Ireland is more of the conditions they experienced this past weekend to made Cinnamon Girl even more of a force to be reckoned with.

Kinsale in the morning, Wicklow sunset in the evening – that’s the sort of passage-making the Sunfast 3300 can achieve when conditions suit.