With Redcliffe ultimately sidelined for the 2026 season, Port Adelaide would once again signal the final round of the season, and whilst the Supersports 85 category was sealed again for the iconic ‘Special Edition’ ‘Cootacraft’ of Mark Pecherzewski, the remaining three classes were wide open. Aside from the outright battle, the Supercat Outboard and the Supersport 65 titles were still to be decided as teams hit the water at midday on Saturday.

In the Supersports 65 category, all eyes were on the battle between Victorian teams ‘Cardiac Arrest’ and reigning Champions ‘Nut Case’. Coming into the final round, ‘Cardiac Arrest’ held a 27-point lead, requiring no more than a run of second-paced finishes to secure the title, whilst for Hary Bakkr and Shane Paton, they needed to win all three races to retain any chance of going back-to-back in the Championship. It was a tall ask, but as the weekend would show – anything is possible!

Supersports 85
The season may have already been declared in the favour of Mark Pecherzewski and the mighty ‘Special Edition’ ‘Cootacraft’ but despite the team’s absence from the season finale, the class was buoyed by the addition of George Sezdirmezoglu’s stunning 22-foot ‘Donzi’ which had made its Offshore debut in Geelong in the hands of the boat owner and multiple American Champion Scott Porta.

Porta was unable to make the journey down for the South Australian event, with Chris Stavrinidis jumping in to take on steering duties as George jumped across to throttles, the pair enjoying the chance to gain some valuable seat time as the fans absorbed the sound of the glorious inboard Mercury 525 V8 echoing up and down Largs Bay, as the pair did battle with the Supersports 65 teams.

Keen to learn from the 65 mile-per-hour class, Sezdirmezoglu followed the pace-setting ‘Nut Case’ around for much of the opening race to get a feel for the course and the racing before stretching the legs of the big 525hp V8 across the two remaining races for a clean sweep of the weekend, much to the boat owner’s great delight and the cheers from his daughters post-race which only added to the joy he’d discovered from his debut Offshore season.

Supersports 65
With 27 points separating the points leading ‘Cardiac Arrest’ from reigning Champions Hary Bakkr and Shane Paton in ‘Nut Case’ the key to winning the speed-restricted Supersports 65 class was going to be finishing.

For the reigning title holders they had only one focus for the weekend; victory in all three races, although they knew only too well that should Charlie Di Iorio finish second to them in all three 30-minute legs, they’d only be able to make up 15 of the 27 points, to remain second in the outright points.

Sadly, 2024 Champion Patty Paczkowski was a non-starter, the Victorian unable to get to the event providing Di Iorio with an opportunity, ‘Valentus’ expected to have been in outright contention introducing a potential challenge to his points lead.

For Brendan Weeks and Sophie Lancaster, Adelaide provided ‘The Con’ team a chance to make an impression, so too Ben Embleton and Liam Sutherland in ‘Team 38’, a crew enjoying their second start in Adelaide, although start was a sore point for the Victorians, electrical issues sidelining the them ahead of the start, the crew unable to trace the issue until Saturday night allowing them to finally complete a race during the last run of the season.

Ultimately the weekend went to ‘Nut Case’, Bakkr and Paton claiming their seventh consecutive first-placed finish, Bakkr lamenting sitting out much of the first round as he explored an opportunity in the faster Supersorts 85 category allowing Di Iorio to claim two of his three outright wins for the season to open his ledger with the Championship points lead, a position he would hold for the remainder of the season.

For Di Iorio – who was joined in Adelaide by both Ivan Benkotic and his father Ralf after school commitments kept Tijana Botic out of the seat – his weekend saw two second placed finishes, whilst a late season surge for Weeks and Lancaster saw him forced to settle for third in the final race knowing that a finish would be enough to secure the Geelong native the 2026 title..

Whilst the tight-knit family run ‘Cardiac Arrest’ team celebrated a big win, Ben Embleton and Liam Sutherland also enjoyed their own celebration having discovered a solution to their electrical issues overnight allowing them to run away to one of their most competitive drives of the season; it may have only been fourth, but for Embleton, it was almost as good as a win!

“We were leading into turn one for a bit there..” Embleton admitted. “We pushed the boat about as hard as it could be pushed; at one point we were almost facing backwards, we couldn’t have driven it much harder at all – we were trailer trim most of the time, but man, we had fun!”

“We tried, we did our best, I don’t think it was ever going to happen, but I’m happy to gift it to them, so well done to them,” Hary Bakkr laughed. “Good on him, he worked hard for it, so he deserves it.”

“All we needed to do in that last race was to finish,” Charlie Di Iorio explained. “If we finished [at least] 50% of the race we’d have had the points to guarantee the Championship. We had the speed in that last one over ‘The Con’ we just couldn’t make the pass; they did very well to keep us at bay. Given that my first time driving was in Adelaide last year, I really didn’t think at the start of this year it was possible to be Champion; I was fairly confident, but I’d only ever driven in flat water – Werribee at the start of the year when it chopped up was a real eye opener, we’ve got the right boat for it, but driving those conditions was just completely different.”

That’s it for the 2025/26 Australian Offshore Superboat Championship, focus now turns back to Lake Macquarie in October to kick off the 2026/27 season, details of which will be revealed in the coming weeks.

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R4. 2025/26 Australian Offshore Superboat Championships
Port Adelaide, South Australia
09-10 May, 2026

RND#4 – Race#1
Supersports 85
1. George Sez/Chris Stav (#DONZI) – 00:31.44 (8-laps)

Supersports 65
1. Hary Bakkr/Shane Paton (#17 Nut Case) – 00:32:05 (8-laps)
2. Charlie Di Iorio/Ivan Benkotic (#46 Cardiac Arrest) – 00:32:52 (8-laps)
3. Brendan Weeks/Sophie Lancaster (#80 The Con) – 00:32:28 (7-laps)
4. Ben Embleton/Liam Sutherland (#38 Team 38 Offshore) – DNF (2-laps)

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RND#4 – Race#2
Supersports 85
1. George Sez/Chris Stav (#DONZI) – 00:35.59 (8-laps)

Supersports 65
1. Hary Bakkr/Shane Paton (#17 Nut Case) – 00:33:02 (8-laps)
2. Charlie Di Iorio/Ivan Benkotic (#46 Cardiac Arrest) – 00:33:07 (8-laps)
3. Brendan Weeks/Sophie Lancaster (#80 The Con) – 00:33:13 (6-laps)
4. Ben Embleton/Liam Sutherland (#38 Team 38 Offshore) – DNS

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RND#4 – Race#3
Supersports 85
1. George Sez/Chris Stav (#DONZI) – 00:30.43 (9-laps)

Supersports 65
1. Hary Bakkr/Shane Paton (#17 Nut Case) – 00:35:15 (9-laps)
2. Brendan Weeks/Sophie Lancaster (#80 The Con) – 00:30:47 (8-laps)
3. Charlie Di Iorio/Ralf Di Iorio (#46 Cardiac Arrest) – 00:30:49 (8-laps)
4. Ben Embleton/Liam Sutherland (#38 Team 38 Offshore) – DSQ

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2025/26 Australian Offshore Superboat Championships
Championship Points (after round four of four)*

AUS#1 Championship
1. Hornet Racing (328-points), 2. MOJO (295), 3. Venturi Offshore (293), 4. The Sting (245), 5. Mobile X (214), 6. Kess Racing (157), 7. TCR Offshore (131), 8. DLR Offshore (116), 9. Special Edition/TR Racing (106), 10. Nut Case (101), 11. Cardiac Arrest (97), 12. The Con (71), 13. Valentus (52), 14. The Colonel (48), 15. Team 38 Offshore (37)

Supersports 85
1. Special Edition (271-points), 2. The Colonel (130)

Supersports 65
1. Cardiac Arrest (407-points), 2. Nut Case (398), 3. The Con (335), 5. Valentus (224), 5. Team 38 Offshore (184)

* only those boats that competed in more than 50% of the rounds are classified in the Championship