NSW GPS Heat 3 - Wallis Lake, Forster - 12/13 Dec

Gday everyone,

Heat 3 of the NSW GPS series is coming up over the weekend of 12th-13th December (end of next week) up on beautiful Wallis Lake, near Forster. The series is generously sponsored by The Windsurfing Shed, Boab Boat Hire and Wicked Promotional Products.

This event is a different to the Sanctuary Point event from a few weeks ago, in that it is GPS Freerace and Handicap only. We'll be sailing both days, from dawn till dusk, to crown the GPS Champion of Wallis Lake.

Also it's a whole weekend event, so we'll be getting together for dinner on Saturday night (and maybe Friday too!) at the Pacific Palms Recreation Club (The Recky) and a few of us are camping together at the Tiona Sundowner park.

When
- Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th December 2015
- Registration Saturday morning at Great Lakes Sailing Club from 10am, Sunday TBA
- Sailing period - dawn until dusk either day for Handicap, with Freerace 30 minute periods to be run throughout the day based on wind condition

Where
- Sailing from either Great Lakes Sailing Club, or Booti Point depending on wind direction and lake conditions
- Camping at Sundowner Tiona - tiona.sundownerholidays.com/ - We are booked into campsites around site 260/261 (Lake Access Powered Sites) - $36/night
- Non camping accommodation in Pacific Palms, Blueys/Boomerang Beach etc or in Forster - www.stayz.com.au/search/keywords:blueys-beach-nsw-australia?view=map
- Dinner Saturday night at the Pacific Palms Rec Club bistro - www.pprc.com.au/






How Much
- Weekend entry is only $30! (covers 1 or 2 days of sailing)
- Pay in cash at rego, or do an electronic deposit beforehand to: Marmong Point Sailing Club, BSB 062827, Acct 00901519 - Please put your name in the Reference field so we know who has paid
- For those who pay online or have already joined the series, thanks, we'll have a list of names at rego
- If you're not a member of an AWA club, we can grant you "guest" membership for the weekend at no extra cost

What are the sailing conditions?
- Long range forecast is showing strong southerly for Saturday, then NE Seabreeze Sunday
- The lake is relatively shallow so only has small chop
- A weed fin is handy to get onto the small weed banks, but shouldn't be required for the majority of the lake

What kind of GPS can be used?
- Locosys GT11, GT31, GW52
- Canmore units which can export a FIT file
- Garmin Foretrex, other watches which export a GPX file
- Sorry but the GPSLogit app is currently NOT approved for the event (See GPSTC site)
- If your device requires a cable/cradle to download the files, please bring it along so I can get your data. Or you can email me the file when you get home.

Whats a GPS freerace event? How is it scored?
- Basically, everyone goes sailing, then at the end of each day hand me your GPS and we will crunch the numbers in the software to find out everyones results
- Each day will be scored separately, then the placings for the two days will be added together to give you a weekend result
- This year we will have two divisions, Freerace and Handicap
- Freerace is determined by who can sail the furthest distance (ie highest average speed) during a defined 30 minute session (eg 2:30-3pm). Conditions permitting we will run two or more of these 30 minute sessions each day. This is the same format as last season.
- Handicap takes into account all of your sailing during the calendar day, and compares it against your GPSTC top 5 results for 2sec, 5x10, Alpha and NM. The person closest to their top 5 average is the winner

The Handicap sounds interesting - can you explain more about it?
- The Handicap division was based on feedback during the off season that people wanted to bring the inclusiveness of the GPSTC into the NSW Series
- The winner is the person closest to their GPSTC Personal Bests (PBs)
- Matt Dowse had the initial idea, and Mark from GPSTC provided the technical know how to automatically get everyones GPSTC top 5 from the website
- As an example, my (fairly unimpressive) Top 5s are:
- 2sec: 34.62, 34.05, 33.25, 31.86, 31.77
- 5x10: 32.43, 31.63, 30.77, 29.42, 29.291
- Alpha: 21.57, 21.17, 21.16, 20.91, 20.89
- Nm: 27.68, 26.1, 25.42, 24.83, 24.11
- So my handicap is the sum of all these numbers, divided by 5 (average of top 5) = 110.586
- During the event, if I had the following results
- 2sec: 28.5
- 5x10: 25.2
- Alpha: 18.5
- NM: 22.6
Then total/"day score" would be the sum of these four results = 94.8
My net score is my "handicap" (110.586) minus my "day score" (94.8) = 15.786
I will tally up everyone's results for the day and the person with the lowest NET score will be the winner. Their score could actually be negative if they break PBs.

The Handicap sounds confusing, I'm not sure I understand?
- The good news is that it doesn't matter!
- All you need to do is
- Turn GPS on at briefing
- Go sailing at any period during the day (including the freerace periods) - be sure to focus on getting a good result for 2sec, 5x10, Alpha and NM
- Turn GPS off when you de-rig, and hand it to me
- I'll copy the GPS tracks onto my laptop and the software will take care of the hard work!

What kind of support have the sponsors provided?
- The Windsurfing Shed contributing towards costs of the t-shirts and supplying prizes for winners
- Boab Boat Hire provided us with discounts on boat hire for the Sanctuary Point GPS and Slalom State Championships event
- Wicked Promotional Products providing the series t-shirts at heavily discounted prices
- Also, Adam Craven from Stormriders has handmade some excellent trophies for the series winners

Looking forward to seeing lots of people at Wallis Lake at the end of next week.

A few pictures from the last GPS day organised by Larko at Booti Point in December 2012. Ended up being 20-25 knot noreaster - fingers crossed for another one of those days!

Will be there Friday and have booked a cabin , looking forward to the event , The owners of the Caravan park are Port Macquarie local sailboarders and if the event returns next year will be more than helpful with the event unfortunately they cant be there on the weekend but will certainly have the managers looking after fellow sailboarders

Bring on the wind

If I remember correctly its top to bottom,
whatever his name is this week
not sure,
Gabe with Millsy and Mick in background
don't know
me
Mick
It was a great day and a sweet spot to sail.

Don't take it personally Mick. We all love budgie and wish it was in our backyard like you guys have. I wish we could have an event every weekend of the summer, up and down the coast, but 4 events for a season is about our (ie Byron, Muz and I) limit at the moment. A budgie day is on the radar for next season.

Also, it'd be great if you or anyone else wanted to organise a day - its pretty easy. Just pick a day (preferably not clashing with another event!), post it online, and do the work afterwards to work out the results (if you want results). That's the great thing about GPS, it is a lot more flexible compared to slalom which needs all sorts of permits, people on boats to start/finish etc which tie us down to a specific day. The downside of event flexibility is that the people involved have to be flexible as well to sail when its windy - this is getting harder and harder with family, kids, sport, work etc etc. Its a lot easier on family when you have a fixed day on the calendar that they can plan around. Sometimes these days have wind, other times we stand around waiting. It's the nature of our sport, we're at the mercy of the weather.

Anyway, hope you and lots of others can come up for next weekend. Saturday's forecast looking very windy - make sure you bring plenty of pegs to tie down your tents!

Cheers
James

Sorry James not at all. Love what you guys are doing and yes it would be good to have an event here at Budge next year.
I have my daughters dance concert on Sunday but will be there on Saturday if forecast prevails. Looking forward to it!!

Looking forward to the weekend.

Just to confirm that we are meeting at the Great Lakes Sailing Club on Saturday morning.

www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/picnic-areas/sailing-club-picnic-area

The sailing club site is in a national park, which as an $8 per day access fee. You can buy a day pass on site from a coin operated vending machine, or from the NPWS headquarters at the Ruins campground just to the south of the Tiona park. You can also buy an annual pass for $22 or country parks annual pass for $45

www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/passes-and-fees/annual-passes

Please make sure you have a pass as the NPWS Rangers know we are coming and will be checking.

See you on the weekend!

Now you got two red thumbs. Strange people. I greened you again. Peace.

Hopefully the forcast brightens up a bit , still will be fun

smiths lake is good in a se wind direction

thats a bugger ,

Canot wait to sail in that clean water photo from caravan park 8 30 this morning nice spot

Looks like a wild night tonight and a great forecast for the weekend and ne breezes Sunday Monday tue we'd
Bom forecast
Saturday 12 December
Strong Wind Warning for Saturday for Hunter Coast
Winds
Southerly 15 to 25 knots, reaching up to 30 knots early in the morning. Winds decreasing to 10 to 15 knots in the morning then turning easterly 15 to 20 knots in the afternoon.

Sunday 13 December
Winds
Easterly 10 to 15 knots turning northeasterly 15 to 20 knots during the morning then increasing to 20 to 30 knots during the evening.

Beautiful day but light winds today at Wallis Lake. The southeasterly was strong enough to tempt lots of sailors out, with plenty of planing in the gusts.

All hopes are on the excellent seabreeze forecast for tomorrow.

So with no results from today, the event is still wide open. If you weren't able to make it today, you're still in with a chance.

Meeting tomorrow back at the Sailing Club at 10am. Fingers crossed for great wind!

Fantastic days sailing. wrecked today but can't remember how long its been since I've had such fun. Plenty of YEEHAAAASSS!!!!!+ a few oh s..ts