Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club's Etchells Offshore Regatta final day

by Richard Howard on 4 Oct 2011 Strong winds and large swell again confined the Etchells fleet to short course harbour racing on the final day of Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club's (NCYC) Forgacs Etchells Offshore Regatta.

PRO Tony Outteridge set a course in the Basin on the Hunter River resulting in tight windward leeward contests directly off Newcastle's Honeysuckle foreshore. Racing in the harbour confines allowed a significant crowd to congregate on the shoreline a mere 35 meters from the top mark and cheer on the fleet each time they converged at the windward end of the course in the shifty conditions. Spectators in hard hats were also purched high on the wheat bulk carrier berthed on the starboard side of the course and on which a few water calls were made by competitors during the racing.

Three heats and three different winners was once again indicative of how tight the racing was.

Race winners for heats five, six and seven went to B Squared (Gary Boyd), Dawn Raid (John Collingwood) and Echo Beach (Tom Woods), respectively.

With consistency the key, Newby sailed by Richard Howard, Joel Skelton and Greg Torpy clinched first place overall on 17 points from B Squared and Critical Balance (Mark Langford) who finished second and third after a count back, equal on 18 points.

Peter McNeil's Iris III and Tom Braidwood's Fantasia rounded out fourth and fifth overall, respectively.

Roger 'Hicko' Hickman (Sun Tzu) commented 'I love getting up to Newcastle. It is such a great place to go racing given its ease of access to a great offshore track and fantastic facilities and great hospitality'.

With a focus on growing competitive sailing NCYC will continue to hold regattas for the Etchells in the future in addition to running short and long course IRC and PHS racing for it keel boat fleets.

For final results and photos go to www.ncyc.net.au