Lake Ontario 300 - record 198 boats to set out today

by Sail-World.com on 17 Jul 2010 Lake Ontario 300 - the 2010 Lake Ontario 300 fleet is the largest in the races 20 year history.

Billed at the Greatest Race on the Lakes, a record 198 boats will challenge for the Sperry Cup on Saturday July 17th 2010. There were 140 in 2008 and last year 170.

Regatta Chairman Guy Perrin said – ‘we are very pleased with the ever growing fleet

‘The LO300 caters to all types of sailors; from hard-core racers to cruisers, fully crewed to single-handed...’

‘There is currently a ceiling on the number of boats we can accommodate; we are maxed out at the club. For future events, we are looking at getting additional dockage from neighbouring yacht clubs. Once you go over a certain number, the logistics of running the event change.’

Competitors from over fifty different yacht clubs representing the northern and southern shores of the lake from Hamilton to Quebec in Canada and Chicago to Rochester in the United States have converged at Port Credit Yacht Club for todays, July 17th start of the race. All types of sailboats will be participating including purpose built race boats, catamarans, and cruisers.

The race was first organized in 1990 by a group of sailors from the Port Credit Yacht Club and the Oakville Harbour Yacht Club (now merged with the Oakville Yacht Squadron) who were involved in single handed racing around the west end of Lake Ontario.

Originally the race was a double handed event but in 1998 fully crewed yachts were also included as a separate Class.

Billed as the longest annual fresh water race in the world, it is also the only circumnavigation of a Great Lake.


The Lake Ontario 300 is actually three distinct races in a single event.

There is the original full circumnavigation of Lake Ontario, now referred to as the Main Duck Island Course. The course travels east from Port Credit Yacht Club, West of Toronto, to a Toronto Islands mark, and directly to the Main Duck Islands at the Eastern end of Lake Ontario, then south to the Ford Shoal Buoy near Oswego, New York, along the South shore to the Niagara mark, at the mouth of the Niagara River, then directly North across the lake to the finish at PCYC.

Second, the exciting new short course, which was originally created to accommodate white sail only yachts, was updated last year and will take yachts around Scotch Bonnet Island. The Scotch Bonnet Island course will follow the Main Duck Fleet to the Toronto Island mark, then sail east to the Scotch Bonnet Island near Prince Edward County, and then cross over the lake to the Niagara mark, before a finish at PCYC.

The course is slightly longer than previous short courses on the LO300 and in 2010; slower yachts will be racing this course under spinnaker.

And third, for the second year, the LO300 is host to the Great Lakes Single-handed Society solo racing event on Lake Ontario.

The LO300 Solo Challenge provides an opportunity for eligible sailors to challenge themselves in a 300 nautical miles single-handed race. All finishers become members of the GLSS and they are all winners

The LO300 features monohull yachts racing under PHRF and IRC rating systems, as well as multihull yachts. It has fully crewed and double handed divisions. The organizing committee is accepting requests from various one-design fleets who are interested in including this challenging offshore event in their existing series.

This year’s race will feature new tracking technology from Kattack. Each boat will carry the Kattack transponder which sends the boat’s position, speed and course to a central monitoring facility. This information is displayed on the web, allowing spectators to watch the race in real time from the comfort of their homes. Signals are sent out every few seconds from each boat so friends and family will be able to see their favourite’s boat every move.

www.lo300.org