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She's ready and raring to go .... her crew keen as mustard though her skipper is a wuss.
Guys and Gals, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good folk all ....
Over the first weekend of October the Fuzzball, the Wombet, Hartley18 and BentSailor are going to make up the core of what should be called Team SailNet to run in the Heaven Can Wait 24Hr race on Lake MacQuarie NSW in the the land of Oz.
If you don't know about the event , have a butchers at
Now that I have looked at the NOR, how long is the course?
how many laps can the womboat do with GOOD crew in that time?
The wombat not with standing mind you.:laugher
Wombet maybe!
Couse is basically 30 nms. We should be able to do that in 24 hours , easy.
The lake is notorious for calms, can get quite nasty in a southerly gale. Nothing like a Great Lakes storm though. LM is placid by comparison. Division 2 boats covered between 120 - 150 nms. Top placed did 146 so I guess we'll be hoping for somewhere in the middle of that. I'm presuming top placed boat had a crew who knew what they were doing. Its bound to take us a couple of laps just to figure out the basics and stop falling over each other, so lets work on 3 to 4 four laps, unles it is a complete fiasco.
I like the bit in the NOR where they recommend skippers note each makes coordinates in daylight .... we may not make it round one lap before night descends .....
Anywho, I'm looking forward to it. 50nms dash up the coast from Sydney to Swansea. We'll do that the Friday or Saturday before the race. I'll enjoy that cos I usually do like offshore stuff but it will be just me and the Wombet so no crew training going on.
Bent spent a stormy day on board a few weeks back back but we did little sailing. Hartley has never been on board and we are still trying to lock in another couple of crew. If we don't, no big deal. Four people can handle it for 24 hours. We won't be using a symmetric, only the assy, so sail handling should be no big deal.
Hartley is a racer so I guess we'll make him tactician. Then when it all goes wrong we'll know who to blame.
As I said, biggest ask will be getting everyone used to the ship and her layout is intended to make short handed cruising relatively simple so I hope we don't need to do too much tacking.
Dropping mooring and heading out this evening for Lake Macquaurie. LM is 50nms north of Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) and we need to get over the Swansea Bar around dawn in order to make it through the Swansea Bridge and up the channel on the high tide. Would have been nice to do it in the daylight hours but we need to work with the tides.
I like offshore passages so happy to do overnighter though weather will be overcast and no moon. I'm never completely convinced about sailing in pitch blackness with no stars, so I am hoping the clouds will clear. Fingers crossed.
Mate of ours is coming out to assist in case we need to induce a bit of heal in order to clear shallow patch just before drop over into the lake.
We'll then leave her up there and train back to Sydney. Return Friday evening for pre race dinner and booze up at the Toronto Motor Yacht Club.
Hartley flies in from Melbourne Firday afternoon, BentSailor is a Lake Macquarie local.
There has been a gale warning out for the NSW coast but the Spaghetti Monster has smiled on us apparently as it was cancelled this morning and now predicted winds on passage are 10 - 25 out the south east so we hope for good reaching conditions. swell around 3 metres, so it could be a fun sleighride.
Oh, I only just ran across your message. Good on ya' shipmate! Here's best wishes for the few, the fuzzy, the fund raisers of Womboat Wonderment and Fame!
First up, thanks to Tom Donnelly for the contribution.. Good on you. Much appreciated.
Well, that was a fiasco, I must say. We'd just topped up on diesel and were heading out when the gale warnings started coming in. The entrance to the lake is over a bar and to be honest I didn't fancy it in 40knt winds. Not sure if they did reach that but even at anchor inside Sydney Harbour it was a mongrel of a night.
Rules?? That's easy: "the little boat gives way to the big boat - especially on the start line". That Nathan Outteridge had better get a good start because the Womboat will be right up his ....!
Shoals will be more of a challenge.. So long as the depth sounder is working and the PDF boating map is relatively recent, by watching other boats roughly the same size as us (particularly the locals or those who have done it before) we should be fine. Otherwise Bent gets lead-line duty for the entire race.
I do find it difficult to believe the Organisers would design the course around the premise that "he who wins runs aground the least", but, hey, the Marlay Point race is like that, so anything is possible. P'raps we just need plenty of wind!..
I expect a finish going into my BIG race this saturday womby! only issue, winds are predicted to be light! now how can a race named "FOUL weather Bluff!" have light winds?!?!?!...........
any who! should be a fund day, even if womby and pals finish their saturday before I start mine!LOLOL
No of course I've never used the bloody thing. We don't get much fog down here and AIS is all one needs to dodge the commercial stuff. Never thought I'd need to be dodging other bloody sailing boats who don't have AIS transponders. Inconsiderate rabble.
Oh yes.. Hartley, mate, have a look up at the sky tonight. It might give you a hint re moon .... oh of course ... Melbourne ... if its stops raining for long enough ..
Well gentle folk, Marty and Smack.. what with weather and a desire to avoid trading bottom paint with a coal seam we sail at midnight tomorrow to make the midday high water over the bar.
Did y'all see this on SA today???? Loved it! (from last years event)
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