After 47 Sydney Hobarts, Michael “Spiesy” Spies still can’t resist the call south. The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia stalwart entered the 2026 edition within days of entries opening, and this time he’s bringing his own boat to the party.
That alone might seem unremarkable. What caught observers’ attention was his choice: a J/160 launched in 2000, recently renamed Maritimo 160 after its previous identity as Sugar. At 53 feet, it’s roughly 20 feet longer than the Maritimo Katwinchar, the 126-year-old classic he crewed aboard for the last two Sydney Hobarts under Bill Barry-Cotter’s ownership. For Spies, a legend across skiff and yacht racing, the transition feels natural. “It’s perfect,” he said of the newer boat. “We just did a couple of little subtle things to improve it here and there without losing its integrity.”
The voyage alone tells a story. Maritimo 160 left Los Angeles bound for San Francisco, where Spies will line up for the Pacific Cup, a 2,100-nautical-mile biennial slog to Hawaii. Once that’s done, he’ll sail the yacht across to Hamilton Island for Race Week in August—Spies sits on the race management team—before the final delivery leg deposits him in Sydney for the 81st Sydney Hobart in December.
It’s a circumnavigation of ambition, yet it masks something quieter. Spies won Line Honours in 1999 and IMS Overall in 2003. He knows what it takes to win. But at this stage, with a well-balanced crew of around seven across several nationalities, he’s not chasing line honours. He’s chasing something else: the chance to actually stay put.
“Every regatta I’ve done in the last four or five decades—you finish it and you’re on a plane to somewhere else,” Spies reflected. “It’d just be nice to actually slow down a bit and enjoy life. It’s the sort of boat that you could comfortably live on.”
After the finish in Hobart, his eyes drift toward Queensland’s northern circuit and beyond into Asia. No rushed departures, no immediate flights. Just a sailor and his boat, finally given permission to linger. That’s the real race—the one against the relentless schedule that’s defined a lifetime on the water.
