Lake Ontario 300, Longest Fresh Water Race in the world!
Thanks to the Race Sponsor.
Black Diamond of the Port Credit Yacht Club (PCYC) and crew is entered in the Lake Ontario 300 for a second time this year. You can read about our interesting experience last year on this blog. Just click on “Yacht Race” on the right side of your screen, then scroll near to the bottom. The race starts Saturday July 18th at 10:30am. Last year we finished on Tuesday at about 7PM, we hope to finish this year by Monday night or Tuesday morning, depending on wind conditions. The forecast right now looks like a light start, winds building for the first day nicely, then dropping off completely for the remainder of the race. So we probably won’t be back until Tuesday.
We have more experience this year with the our new Asym Spinnaker, the crew is getting a little more comfortable but we are still pretty green. We know one thing, we will have an enjoyable time. Our crew of 5 includes myself, Ed Radonic your skipper, Andrew McAllister, Cez Makowski, Kate Thomas, Martin Boeykens and Will French.
The boat is pretty light and off loaded, we are even taking off the full enclosure canvas this year. We are still however a cruiser and will have a hard time competing against he hardcore racers in our fleet. We have Sirius Satellite weather and internet on board. We hope this will give us a little advantage over some of the boats. I will be updating this blog during the race, with just some of the happenings on the water, competition and general reports.
The most interesting way to follow this race is with the FIS Race Tracking. There are a 160 boats entered this year, the largest fleet ever. Each boat has been equipped with a transponder for tracking. You will be able to track all the boats around the lake, they are organized in divisions, so find Black Diamond in the Main Duck Course, Fully Crewed Division 2. You will be able to track all the boats and compare how they are doing against each other and follow the race in this exciting new way.
I have posted the link to the race tracking site on my blog, top of the page, click on Live GPS tracking. There are two links, the first is the FIS Race Tracking, and the second is our personal tracking just for our boat.
More information about the Lake Ontario 300 race can be found at their site www.lo300.org
Stay tuned for race updates during the race.
