Hermanus Yacht Club has defended the Lipton Challenge Cup in dramatic fashion, winning back-to-back titles after a final race for the ages in Table Bay.
After nine races of intensely close competition across Table Bay, the 2026 Lipton Challenge Cup had come down to this: Hermanus Yacht Club and Royal Cape Yacht Club, deadlocked on points, one race remaining. The trophy would be decided in a single, winner-takes-all showdown.
Several boats were caught over the line early, including Royal Cape and Saldanha Bay, immediately heaping pressure on the fleet. Royal Cape Yacht Club Academy rounded the first top mark in the lead, but with everything still to play for, nothing was settled.
By the second top mark, Point Yacht Club led the fleet, followed by UCT and Hermanus. Royal Cape, recovering from their difficult start, had fought their way back into the top four – and, crucially, were sitting just ahead of Hermanus. For the defending champions, the situation was stark: they needed to overtake their great rivals.
The final stages
In the final bottom-mark rounding Royal Cape and Hermanus converged neck-and-neck, UCT right in the mix, every metre mattering. Knysna Yacht Club’s challenge unravelled when their spinnaker dropped into the water, costing them valuable positions at the front of the fleet.
But by then, Royal Cape and Hermanus had separated from the rest and begun their own tactical duel. They were no longer racing the fleet — they were racing each other. Cover, tack, cover again. That duel ran all the way to the finish line.
UCT Yacht Club crossed first, taking the race win, with False Bay Yacht Club second and Hermanus third. But the race result was only half the story. The Hermanus crew – skipper Calvin Gibbs and his crew of Markus Progli, Thomas Henshilwood and Scarlet Celliers aboard the J22 Nitro Juice – held their nerve and crossed ahead of their rivals. That was all that mattered- third in the race but first overall.
For a club that first lifted the trophy in 1969, then again in 1996, last year’s breakthrough victory and now this successful home defense write another remarkable chapter in a legacy spanning nearly six decades.
Celliers is also the first women to win the Lipton Cup and according to her this achievement make her feeling proud. “It was an amazing opportunity and I am so glad to be part of it,” she said after the win.
