Rob Bassett’s Wired was first home in under four hours, Graham Matthews’ Equilibrium won on both handicaps, and Luke Judge’s Wasted Away climbed from 18th on the water to fifth on PHS.
There wasn’t much wind off Ōrākei at 10.05 on Saturday morning. The cloud sat low and grey, and the Roy McDell Memorial Race fleet went off the line and straight into spinnakers. Red, blue, green and pink, they ghosted slowly north towards Whangaparāoa.
Two boats got away early. Rob Bassett’s Bakewell-White 52 Wired and William Goodfellow’s Elliott 50 Explore Racing were soon out in front, and they stayed there.
By about 12.30pm, most of the fleet had reached the top of the course and the breeze was finally building. Round the Eastern Navy Buoy, past Orarapa Island and Rakino, the fleet turned for home from the south-west corner of Motutapu, sailing back towards Ōrākei into the south-westerly.
Wired crossed the line at 2.04pm, 3 hours 59 minutes after the start. Nobody else broke four hours.
The fight for second went right to the finish. After roughly 35 miles, Explore Racing and Graham Matthews’ Botin Carkeek 55 Equilibrium crossed 38 seconds apart, with Explore Racing just ahead.
Then nothing for 40 minutes. Quintin Fowler’s More 55 Rum Bucket was next in, with John Muir’s Georgia One barely a minute behind. The rest kept arriving through the afternoon. The last of the 25 finishers, Melissa Logan’s Aeolian, came home at 4.48pm, more than six and a half hours after the start.
Equilibrium tops the Roy McDell handicaps
Once the handicaps were applied, Equilibrium had won. It finished 2 minutes 5 seconds ahead of Explore Racing on both PHRF and PHS, turning a 38-second loss on the water into a clear win.
Behind the front two, it got tight. On PHRF, Nigel Hendy’s Dufour 45e Nirvana held third by 33 seconds from John Meadowcroft’s MC31 Carrera 3. Third to 11th was covered by less than five minutes. On PHS, Tony Wallis’ The Black Pearl, eighth across the line, took third.
And then there was Wasted Away. Luke Judge’s boat is a Ross 930; it crossed the line 18th, more than an hour and a half after Wired and 49 minutes behind Rum Bucket. On corrected time, it was 54 seconds behind the 55-footer. It finished sixth on PHRF and fifth on PHS, and no boat in the fleet climbed further up either table.
The name on the race
Mike Malcolm’s Bird on the Wing finished 14th across the line and 12th on PHS. Malcolm was one of the young sailors Roy “Pop” McDell encouraged at the Squadron, and he sailed with McDell on his Townson 32 Sunset. McDell was Squadron commodore from 1981 to 1983 and raced everything from 18ft skiffs to K-Class yachts. He died while Peter Hay was commodore, between 1994 and 1996, and Hay suggested the club’s Gold Cup race should carry his name.
Saturday’s race carried more than the McDell name. It was the second round of the 2026/27 Doyle Sails Gold Cup Series, and for the first time it also opened the RNZYS Commodore’s Cup, a season-long series of six of the Squadron’s longer races that includes the Night Race to Kawau and finishes with the Round Rangitoto Race.
Roy McDell through the lens
The photos and video from the 2026 Roy McDell Memorial Race were captured by Roger Mills of Hummingbird Photography, following the fleet as it raced around the Hauraki Gulf. His images bring the day to life, from the light-air start off Ōrākei to the boats making their way around the course and back towards the finish.
