13/09/2026
PORT MACQUARIE SAILING CLUB
13-9-26
The Port Macquarie Sailing Club started the 2026-2027 sailing season on Sunday with race 1 of the spring series in a nice North Easter with a run out tide under a lovely sunny sky. Paul Robertson was on duty and set a course with a downriver/upwind start to the first of the 4 Port buoys, buoy A, just down past Stevens Street, a cracking’ reach straight across the river to the 2nd Port buoy B near the mouth of Limeburners Creek, a long run upriver to buoy C across the river from the Governors Way Canal, another reach across to the final buoy D near the mouth of the canal, then a work upwind to the start/finish line off the clubhouse. The catamarans did 4 laps of the course and the monohulls did 3 laps.
The catamaran division only had 2 starters, both Arrow cats. Frank O’Rourke on ‘Zero’ had more to celebrate than his birthday taking the win in this first race of the season ahead of Jack Corthals on ‘Crackerjack’.
In the Monohull division, the highlight was the battle between the Impulses of Terry Howard’s ‘Flying Dragon, Germain Corthals’ ‘Aeolus’, Jeff Walsh’s ‘Serenity’, and Rob Barwick’s ‘Drift’ with the 4 boats within 15 meters of each other on the first 2 upriver runs until ‘Serenity’ broached and capsized about 300m from the C buoy before recovering quickly, and ‘Drift’ getting the death rolls and capsizing just before the buoy, then having problems getting righted and back on board again causing him to retire. The rest of the monohull fleet didn’t even fare that well – Dave and Logan McNeil in ‘Toy of Joy’ had a couple of capsizes and a few breakages with the jib sheets breaking off the clew of the jib causing them to retire, Steve Couch in ‘Lazybuoy’ did one lap before finding he had lost too much match fitness during the off season to continue in the good breeze, and Gary Herbert in ‘Allegro’ struggled to make headway with this amount of breeze. The final washup was ‘Flying Dragon’ winning by 9 seconds ahead of ‘Aeolus’ who was 1 minute 12 seconds ahead of 3rd place ‘Serenity’.
Next week is a double header with Spring Series Race 2 starting at 10.30am and the 1st Club Championship starting at 1pm. Jeff Walsh is rostered on duty.
Jeff Walsh – Publicity Officer
0418 841581
[email protected]
