REPORT ON THE 2024 LAKE MACQUARIE CHALLENGE.

HELD AT SOUTH LAKE MACQAURIE AMATEUR SAILING CLUB

SUNDAY MARCH 3^RD, 2024.

The Lake Macquarie Challenge is an annual event, first held in 1984. The Challenge is between teams of Hartley TS16's from the Drummoyne and Saratoga Sailing clubs together with boats based at Lake Macquarie. Visting boats are welcome.

It uses a handicap start with handicaps being transferred from the home club. The winning club on a low points scoring system is awarded the Challenge Shield. Prizes are also awarded to the top 3 individual placegetters.

This year the race returned to SLMASC after being held at Speers Point ASC for a few years. 11 boats from the 3 clubs attended.

Luckily the weather was the best day of the week, a warmish fine day with a light but building North Easterly breeze.

Before the race, handicaps were worked out with a spread of 6 minutes between first and last boat. The make-up of the teams was based on membership, except that Uncle Bob [Eric Partland] kindly joined the Lake Macquarie team to balance the numbers.

A course was set based on the NE wind within view of the SLMASC clubhouse. It was of 3 triangular laps designed to take about 2 hours to complete.

There was close racing at every stage of the race. On the first and second rounding of the bottom mark, there were at least 4 boats abreast of each other as they gybed around the mark to start a new lap. The wind was generally consistent and fair, within the 8-12 kt range, except for the waters near the top mark where the shape of Pulbah Island ensured some ground could be made up or lost while sailing upwind to reach the mark.

The story of the race was to try to catch and keep up with “Maybe” and its crew of Chris Nesbitt-Hawes and John Wood.

They started the race well, establishing a lead soon after the first mark and were never headed.

‘Vinca” sailed consistently to cross the finish line second with “Uncle Bob” third. They and “Extremely Sinister’ [Ron Johnston] sailed through a majority of the fleet and showed good pace and judgement throughout.

The winning club this year was Drummoyne SC, which meant that they retained their title. Congratulations to the members of Drummoyne and the other placegetters.

A presentation ceremony and post-race drinks/afternoon tea was held in the clubhouse after the race.

The Hartley TS16 Association of NSW and ACT would like to thank SLMASC for hosting the event and its members for their assistance.

SLMASC is the venue for the NSW and ACT State Championships being held over Easter, 2024. This race was a good training for the fleet.

More race details are as follows.

Regards

Glenn Nolan

Freudian Slip

1543.