Both men had trailed Woody Martin coming out of the water but they overtook him on the biking section, with Jackson setting off after Tucker after trading their helmets for running shoes.
Entering the triathlon as a "speed hit out" ahead of the Taupo Ironman in seven weeks, Jackson was confident he could run down Tucker and had taken the lead when they made it back to the clubrooms for the second lap.
"I just didn't want to give him more than a minute," Jackson said afterwards.
He need not have worried as he extended his advantage to finish at 10.17am, just under two minutes ahead of his rival, completing the event in one hour, 5.43 minutes.
"The heart rate's up quite a bit. It was a good hit out," Jackson said.
He added the wind was, thankfully, not as big a factor as it could have been, only "getting up" at the end of the running leg.
After Tucker came home in 1:07.41, Martin finished third overall and second in the men's section in 1:10.40.
Another with little to worry about was Collegiate student Christian Conder, who dominated the short-course version of the race with each section being roughly half the length of the full event.
The lanky 15-year-old cut a solitary figure as he rode back to the running leg transition at 9.35am, and dashed off to Kowhai Park to be back in no time flat for a 33.28-minute finish.
The "Conder Team" were the next competitors home, more than three minutes behind.
Like Jackson, Conder said the wind caused little concern and he agreed given the comfortable nature of his victory it would be best to "move up" to long-course events.
"I haven't done one for a while but I'm going to be doing a few this year."
