Folks,

The first weekend in October is approaching and therefore so is The "Heaven Can Wait" 24 hour race on Lake Macquarie.

Lake Macquarie has a shore line of around 99 miles so it makes for a good venue for this type of event.

Last year I was lucky enough to be invited to sail on a friends Farrier Trimaran and I will be doing the same this year.


Despite the rain squalls and lightening throughout the night and in the pitch black of the night the flashing lights on rounding marks seemed to look an awful lot like the flashing lights on the isolated danger marks, we had a pretty good time.

Exciting and eventful times- The top monhull contender for line honors ran aground in the night and had to wait till morning to be pulled free.
It was a great sight watching the top cat, Two Tribes, flying a hull upwind and tearing up the lake under screacher off the breese.


I don't know about the others but we found that the rain, lightning and difficulty shorting out the rounding marks from the rocky outcrops really added to the excitement.

The "Heaven Can Wait" virtual yacht club is growing in popularity around the world with more overseas than Australian members to date.
Last year the race management was run by a chap (Blake Middleton) who flew in from the US for the purpose and I
understand he will be coming over again for this year's event.

The Heaven Can Wait Yacht club was formed with the sole purpose of running this race to raise money for cancer research.

This year to help raise money for the charity they have set up a way of making donations online. Anyone who would like to help out by committing a few dollars can do so by making donations at
http://www.everydayhero.com.au/Try_Flying
which is the boat I will be sailing on.

For anyone interested I hope to take some picks and write a report of the event.
This is a very worthwhile event working towards a great cause. If you are local and have a boat come join the fun - if not consider making a donation. You never know the money raised by this event could help save lives!

Regards,
Phill

Folks,
The Heaven can Wait 24 hour race starts in around 14 hours.

So far donations via the web site have raised a little over
$13,000 for Cancer Research. A great reason to get together for a sail.

I just checked the forecast and it's looking like we'll have wind.
The race should start in 13 knot ESE at 11am and the breese is forecast to build
reaching SE 29 knots just as it gets dark, and will stay above the 20 knots though out the night.

Should be a lot of fun.

I expect to be quite busy with the breese up but my camera is packed.