2024-25 Sailing Program outlined at Forum

A Keelboat Sailing Forum was held at MHYC on Wednesday 22 May to outline the proposed 2024-2025 Sailing Program, seek feedback from members and discuss any topics of interest.  Vice Commodore Racing Mitch White welcomed about thirty keelboat owners and skippers before Sailing Manager David Staley reviewed this year’s calendar, summarised feedback from owners and presented the program that has been developed for next season.

There will be little change to the midweek programs for 2024-2025, except that the Friday Twilight Series will have three more races and the catering arrangements for Thursday and Friday Twilights are likely to change.

MHYC’s Saturday racing program is also similar to the current season, with twenty races scheduled in the Annual Inshore Pointscore (one less) six races in the Ocean Pointscore (unchanged) and eleven Feature Races (also unchanged).  Opening Day and the Commodore’s Cup has been moved later in September to enable more boats and people from the diverse activities of the club to participate.  Mark Saturday 21 September 2024 in your diary to be at MHYC.

The big difference from 2023-2024 is that MHYC will cooperate with Manly Yacht Club in the coming year to run a Combined Sunday Series.  This series incorporates five passage races starting and finishing in the vicinity of The Sound, and two sprint days with three races each day.  Middle Harbour Divisions 1 and 2 will be combined into Division 1 for this series, with Division 3 boats being promoted to Division 2.  This will align the Middle Harbour and Manly fleets.  The aim is to provide a series which has competitive racing for a larger group of boats, is sailed on a range of good courses located in the northern part of Sydney Harbour, activate a new group of boats who are not attracted to Saturday racing, and be able to share the race management resources of both clubs.

During Winter 2025, MHYC will conduct three days of the Sydney Harbour Sprint Series and three Feature Events (one of each in May, June and July) and the Leading Edge Pursuit Series of five races held in August.  The Winter Pursuit Series will be discontinued and boat owners at MHYC will be encouraged to enter either the Combined Clubs Winter Series (Saturdays) or the CYCA Winter Series (Sundays) instead.

The Nautilus Marine Insurance Sydney Harbour Regatta is the club’s biggest event each year and will be contested on 1 & 2 March 2025.  For the offshore racers, the Nautilus Marine Insurance Sydney Short Ocean Racing Championship on 23 & 24 November 2024 is the event to kick off the summer.  MHYC will also deliver a number of regattas for one-design keelboats and five charity and corporate regattas are also planned.

So, another busy season (ten more races than this year) is coming up and we encourage owners, skippers and crew to start now on planning the events and series in their individual sailing programs.  The program outline will remain draft until July when final adjustments are approved by the Sailing Committee.  The overall schedule, along with schedules and sailing instructions for the different series, will be published on the website during August and the Sailing Handbook will be published by early September.

To view the Keelboat Sailing Forum Presentation – click here

To view the Overall Sailing Program outline – click here

For any questions, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.