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If you race offshore in Australia there is one boat that you will (always) have to get past to have any chance of winning. Rob Kothe talks to Ichi Ban skipper Matt Allen and his longtime performance analyst and race navigator Will Oxley


The 628-mile Sydney Hobart Race is for many defined by a famous mark rounding just 42nm from the Hobart finish line. After the ocean passage down the New South Wales coast, Bass Strait and Tas- manian coast, Tasman Island is the sen- tinel to another wind world. Storm Bay can be full of wind shadows, and the Der- went River winds routinely die at night. Most Sydney Hobart sailors have sad stories to tell about their podium placing at Tasman Island being snatched randomly away from them. In the past four years Ichi Ban has been the name of the leading boat on IRC handicap at Tasman Island, and she has managed to convert two of those into overall race wins. Ichi Ban’s owner, Matt Allen, now a


veteran of 30 Hobart races, is a member of the Australian Olympic Committee, out - going president of Australian Sailing and former CYCA Commodore. Owner of a string of racing yachts called Ichi Ban (it means number one in Japanese), Allen started the series with a gold-coloured Farr 52 in 2002 and launched into the TP52 class in 2015 when he purchased Niklas Zennström’s Rán, a Judel-Vrolijk design built in 2011 by Green Marine. In 2016 she was leading the race on handicap at Tasman Light. But she too died in Storm Bay. Allen stepped up, commissioning a


new offshore-tailored TP52. Designed by Botin, built by Ximo Lopez’s Longitud Cero, the highly regarded TP52 builder in Castellón, Spain, Allen’s ‘Hobart special’ arrived in Sydney in September of that year. The plan worked. Immediately fast out of the box, the new Ichi Ban led the 2017 Hobart fleet at Tasman Island… but this time holding on to win overall when the breeze held up to the end. In 2018 Allen skippered Ichi Ban to


wins in the Australian Yachting Champ - ionships, Brisbane to Gladstone, Flinders Islet, Newcastle Bass Island and Bird Island races, and the CYCA’s Blue Water Point score. Ichi Ban was also named RORC Yacht of the Year, the first


58 SEAHORSE


Australia yacht to win the award. A metic- ulous campaigner, through 2018 Allen and his crew had made well over 250 separate modifications to their yacht to improve her speed and her offshore reliability. Come Hobart time Ichi Ban was the


overall handicap leader at Tasman again, and she held that lead until the very mouth of the Derwent River. But the Reichel/Pugh 66 Alive, the 2018 overall winner, sailed the final 11 miles from the Iron Pot to the Der- went River finish line in an hour. In the fast dying breeze the same distance took Ichi Ban six hours, dropping her to fifth overall. In 2019 Ichi Ban’s wins included


Division 1 of the Australian Yachting Cham- p ionships, Adelaide Port Lincoln Race (also taking line honours), the Brisbane Hamil- ton Island, Flinders Islet and Newcastle Bass Island races. Those performances were enough to tip the balance to being awarded 2019 World Sailing Boat of the Year. Thence to Hobart 2019, leading again


at Tasman Island. But this time a new breeze was in by the time Ichi Ban – and nine other boats in her division – arrived in the river and she took the overall win for the second time in three races. And Allen and his latest Hobart winner are not done yet. ‘We are assuming there will be a 2020


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