Peccadillo and Alien take out Melbourne-Hobart honours

The only multihull in the field, Peccadillo flourished in the challenging conditions, with winds gusting greater than 40 knots and five-metre seas, as the fleet made its way down the west coast of Tasmania and was never headed.

The boat arrived in Hobart just after 1am (AEDT) on Saturday, followed by monohull Ryujin, who was two hours behind. Lord Jiminy was third.

The leading pair had tussled early for the front-running in the 435-nautical-mile race, which started from Portsea pier on Wednesday, before Peccadillo surged ahead.

"Blowy was good for us, we enjoyed that,'' Meredith said.

"It was the long upwind legs down to the bottom of Tassie that were not really our favourite, but across the bottom (of Tasmania), in a nice 30-knot breeze, that's what this boat likes."

Peccadillo smashed the previous multihull record set by Bagatelle in 1988 by almost 10 hours, with an elapsed time (which included a time penalty for a course-sailed error leaving Port Philip Heads) of two days, 18 hours, four minutes and one second.

Alien, skippered by Justin Brenan from the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria, was victorious in the battle for the prestigious Heemskerk Perpetual Trophy.

The boat flew under the radar for the first part of the race, but positioned itself well for the final run home, with the overall winner determined on AMS handicap.

It finished ahead of Ginan, with Maverick third.

"It was an interesting race," Brenan said.

"It's not every day you can go sailing in the Southern Ocean in warm conditions and go fast."

Brenan has won the race each time on the Lidgard 36 designed boat, which was built in 1996, with its previous victory coming in 2017.

Rod Smallman and Leeton Hulley, from the Sandringham Yacht Club, co-skippered their Jeanneau Sunfast 3600 Maverick to win the double-handed division and the overall race on performance handicap.

Ginan was the first monohull into Hobart and was the winner on ORC handicap.

Australian Associated Press