In the heat of the moment, it’s always easy to be euphoric about an event, but the 2025 Lipton Challenge Cup contest will go down in history as one of the best ever.

The regatta was raced on J/22s for the first time, and that had a big impact. Immediately, numbers swelled from single digits to a respectable 18 yacht fleet. It also attracted a core of competitive youth sailors who either took on the experience of older and more experienced Lipton Cup sailors or sailed as a mixed team with youth and experience on the same boat.

The organizing club, the Royal Cape Yacht Club, pulled out all the stops and provided a great venue and organization that would be hard to beat.

Ten races were sailed in mostly fair breeze, and there was no single team that ran away with the event as every race was contested in style.

The team from Hermanus Yacht Club (HYC) had age and Lipton Cup victories in the form of the tactician Markus Progli, who combined well with a youthful Calvin Gibbs (26) as helmsman and two youth sailors who are still at school, James Rae and Scarlet Cilliers.

Their victory, the third time Hermanus Yacht Club has won the coveted title in 71 editions of the contest, was done simply with consistently good results in each race. In 10 races, their worst position was an eighth, otherwise they were always in the top five, with bullets in the first and third races.

It is worth mentioning that the two youngest in this team, James Rae and Scarlet Cilliers, were debutants in this contest, and that some hurried scouring of the record books did not reveal any other woman winners of this magnificent Lipton Cup. Scarlet became the first ever woman winner — and to do that on debut is a wonderful feat.

On the final day, the RCYC team were unable to claw back the yellow dot with a close race 9, and a victory “going away” in the final race just to stamp their mark on proceedings and finish with three race wins — better than the rest of the fleet.

In conclusion, this was a fine regatta, with awesome displays of top-flight competition, and very worthy winners. The J/22 is likely to stay as the Lipton Cup boat for a few years yet, bringing about renewed enthusiasm for the only true inter-club sailing challenge in South Africa.

View results here.