The 4th Leg of the NNYU Interclub Challenge was sailed at Hattingspruit dam on 15th & 16th March. For those of you who are wondering how to find the dam, it is the home ground of Glendee Yacht Club and is approximately 12 kms outside of Dundee.

Saturday morning we awoke with a gentle breeze coming down from Newcastle way which was a great relief to a number of sailors who had attempted to see if the bar would remain open all night, (mutual consent by all concerned, the bar closed at 3:20am). With a start time of 11:00 AM the wind decided to play its part and suddenly increased in strength to approximately 30 knots. (the wind strength measured at the bridge was 20 knots - the bridge is protected from the full force of the wind by Plain trees that are 30 meters tall). The first start was unfortunately abandoned as a number of first time racers (and some old timers) went over and had to be rescued.

Once racing officially started the course race was the old Olympic course of triangle, sausage, triangle. This made very interesting racing as for the past two years all we have been doing are windward leeward courses and suddenly we once again are forced to reach. This on a cat can be an extremely exhilarating experience, and my skipper and I were worried that we would be forced to pay a fine of downing a beer or two after managing to flip twice.

The results at the end of the weekend were as follows,

1st Kyle De Wet and Hugh Barr (4 1st and 2 2nds)
2nd Gordon Marshall and Mornay
3rd Piet Wissekerke and Monica

A total of 9 seniors entered the event with 6 Darts, two Halcats and a Hobie 18. Two juniors entered the event on Dabchicks.

The NNYU Open Cat Champs is scheduled for the weekend of 9/10 August 2003 at AFYC.

The NNYU are also introducing a long haul event which is to be hosted at Chelmsford Dam on 4th / 5th of October 2003. This particular event we are hoping to attract both serious racers and those people who have never raced before. The emphasis will be on having fun.