Lincoln Week Regatta

Lincoln Week Regatta is a multi-day inshore and coastal regatta run each February by the Port Lincoln Yacht Club on Boston Bay, and it ranks among South Australia's largest and most popular keelboat events. Held the week after the Adelaide to Port Lincoln Yacht Race delivers its offshore fleet across Spencer Gulf, the regatta turns Port Lincoln into a hub of competitive sailing and waterside celebration on the Eyre Peninsula — a fixture that has run since 1976.

What it is

Lincoln Week Regatta is a windward-and-coastal series sailed on Boston Bay, welcoming keelboats, multihulls and trailable yachts across racing and cruising divisions. It sits at the end of a longer sailing journey: the offshore Adelaide to Port Lincoln Yacht Race brings a fleet roughly 156 nautical miles from Outer Harbour to Boston Bay, and once those crews arrive, the regatta gives them — alongside local boats and visitors — several days of inshore racing before the trip home.

The result is an event with two distinct flavours. There is the serious, fully crewed racing that draws some of Australia's strongest competitors, and there is the more relaxed cruising racing for crews who treat the week as a sailing holiday as much as a contest. Both share the same spectacular stretch of water, and both finish each day at the same clubhouse on the Boston Bay foreshore.

History

The inaugural Adelaide to Port Lincoln Yacht Race was run in 1950, conceived to lure Adelaide yachts across the gulf to Boston Bay. For its first quarter-century the race stood largely on its own, with crews arriving, finishing and heading home.

That changed in 1976, when the Port Lincoln Yacht Club ran the very first Lincoln Week Regatta as a follow-on event — a reason for sailors to stay in Port Lincoln and keep racing once the passage was done. The idea endured, and the regatta grew into a week-long celebration of racing, camaraderie and community that now defines the South Australian sailing calendar each February.

The course and format

Racing takes place on Boston Bay, one of the largest natural harbours in Australia. That scale gives race officers room to set a genuine variety of courses across the days of competition.

The format mixes inshore and coastal racing. Racing divisions are typically sent around windward-leeward courses that reward boat speed and tactical sailing upwind and down. Cruising divisions, every bit as keenly contested, tend to prefer courses set around buoys and islands rather than repeated beats — a style that makes the most of Boston Bay's channel markers and the islands that dot the harbour. If you are new to terms like windward-leeward or division, the sailing terms glossary is a useful companion. Results are scored under handicap systems, so understanding the difference between line honours and handicap helps make sense of the daily standings.

The fleet and classes

The regatta is open to yachts, multihulls and trailable yachts, split across racing and cruising divisions to keep like boats competing against like. In recent years entries have ranged between roughly 35 and 50 boats, drawn from across South Australia and further afield.

Because the fleet spans everything from grand-prix-style racing yachts to family cruisers and trailables, scoring relies on handicap measurement rather than pure boat-for-boat finishes. For readers weighing the merits of different rating systems, our explainer on IRC versus ORC handicap racing sets out how measurement handicaps work. The diversity of the fleet is part of the appeal — it is one of the few weeks where a hard-charging racing crew and a cruising family can share the same start line. Crews curious about how strict one-design yacht racing compares with this handicap mix will find the contrast instructive, and our guide to grand prix yacht racing and our profile of the Melges 40 put the high-performance end of the sport in context.

The destination

Port Lincoln is the reward as much as the racetrack. Set on the eastern shore of the Eyre Peninsula about 240 kilometres west of Adelaide, the town styles itself the seafood capital of Australia — and the claim is well earned. It is home to one of the largest commercial fishing fleets in the southern hemisphere, and the surrounding waters produce southern bluefin tuna, King George whiting, Spencer Gulf king prawns and, just around the coast at Coffin Bay, some of the country's most celebrated oysters.

For visiting crews, that means the sailing is bookended by exceptional eating and a genuine sense of place. Boston Bay's sheltered, deep water and reliable summer breezes make it a natural amphitheatre for racing, while the town's restaurants, aquaculture tours and beaches give shore crew and families plenty to do.

How to enter

Entry is handled online through the Port Lincoln Yacht Club. Skippers register their boat, supply crew details and boat specifications, and provide the relevant safety certifications required for the divisions they wish to contest. Many boats arrive via the Adelaide to Port Lincoln Yacht Race, while others are trailered or sailed in specifically for the regatta week.

Because divisions and entry requirements can change from season to season, the most reliable starting point is the club's official Lincoln Week pages, where the notice of race, entry portal and the latest programme of racing and social events are published. If you are bringing a boat across, it is worth confirming measurement and safety requirements early. You can also read about our own campaign and the boat on this site, and see where events like this sit in a season on the programme page.

How to follow

Daily results are published online through yacht-scoring platforms, with race-by-race and series scores across each division as the regatta unfolds. For the wider story — fleet news, photography and updates from both the offshore race and the regatta week — the Port Lincoln Yacht Club and the official Lincoln Week channels are the best sources, supplemented by South Australian sailing media that cover the event each February.