Two crews comprising wounded Australian and British defence personnel successfully completed the 2017 Sydney to Hobart yacht race on the evening of December 29.
Each crew comprised 16 former ADF or British Forces personnel who had been wounded, illness or had been injured. The Australian crew in Invictus Games 2018 Down Under, and the UK crew sailing Invictus Games Sydney 2018 Game On completed the gruelling ocean race within 11 hours of each other, with the UK crew claiming the ‘Ashes on Water’ on this occasion.
“Everyone has taken so much from this trip,” said Dan Fielding, a former Royal Marine. “Most of us have taken more out of the last three days than we’ve taken from the last three years. We’ve bonded as a team and we worked hard at every revolution. There’s a lot of revolutions over a race like this, but we worked for each other, snatching sleep here and there and working the boat for the conditions.”
“With a head wind we had to do a lot of tacking on the way up, it’s a lot of fun because everybody has to work together you can’t escape anyone either,” added Australian WOFF Craig McGrath. “It forces you to get along with people and to work together and I really like doing that.”
The 2018 Invictus Games will be held in Sydney from 20 – 27 October.