Ben Ball has been waiting since he was 14 for this moment. On 08 June 2026 at 14:45 NZST, Ball stood at the helm of his 1976 Cavalier 36 Camellia with Southport ahead of him, the wait was over.
Completing the 2026 Solo Trans-Tasman Yacht Challenge in 9 days 2 hours 37 minutes and 36 seconds, he has sailed 1,281 nautical miles. On PHRF corrected time, his result stands at 6 days 10 hours 21 minutes and 2 seconds, second in the monohull fleet (final results still pending), behind only Malcolm Dickson’s Sarau.
The dream started in 1990. Ball was 14 years old when he picked up Bill Belcher’s Shipwreck on Middleton Reef — The Story of a Tasman Survivor and read it cover to cover. The Solo Trans-Tasman Yacht Challenge has been on his radar ever since.
Thirty-six years later, the skipper from Waiheke crossed the line in the boat he has been waiting for over half a lifetime to sail across the Tasman. Camellia is a 1976 Cavalier 36, a Doug Peterson design with the deck by Laurie Davidson (correction made 11 June), and she turned 50 this year, the same age as her skipper. This was his first solo Trans-Tasman. He ran out of excuses, he said before the start, and so he went.
Fifty years in the making: Ben Ball’s Solo Trans-Tasman dream
The race did not make it easy. The Tasman Sea threw everything it had at the fleet, throwing boats and sailors around like toys in the ocean. Not to be beaten, Ball picked his line and went for it. Straight to Southport.
On day three, the anchor locker overflowed into the cabin and deposited half a ton of water below. Ball spent two hours bailing. “My own f—-p,” he said. The next morning he was blasting along at 7 knots with the ocean staying outside the boat, feeling good despite the bruises, watching two faster boats he had no business keeping pace with sitting just behind him. From then on, he just kept sailing.
There were days when the wind wouldn’t let him point in the right direction. There were 5-metre waves and a couple of Drambuies when the 300-mile milestone ticked over. There was a “pretty wild night” with lightning all around and another with a “shit fight” he didn’t elaborate on.
Throughout it all, Camellia and her 0.706 handicap kept doing quiet, persistent work.
With 121 NM to go, he was at ease, making banana bread and cleaning the boat. Looking where the rest of the fleet lay behind him, he was emphatic, “They will have to try hard to [catch] me now”. By last evening, he had sailed into second on PHRF corrected time, ahead of Peter Elkington’s Young 11 Pacman and Sharon Ferris-Choat’s Verdier 40 Vixen Racing.
A Cavalier 36 built the year New Zealand hosted the America’s Cup challenge. A Waiheke Island sailor. A 36-year-old dream. And a finish at Southport, on a boat he clearly loves, in a race that tested everything he had. Met by his very proud father, John, and equally proud sister, Angie.
Fifty years in the making. Worth every mile.
PHRF results are still pending.
