Ready to rumba
Entries for Middle Harbour Yacht Club’s flagship Sydney Harbour Regatta on this weekend, March 6 and 7, have climbed past the 180 mark, among them a regatta stalwart, “Rumba”.
Photography by Andrea Francolini
03 March 2021
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A local yacht jointly owned for close to 20 years, Rumba has competed in every Sydney Harbour Regatta since the inaugural series in 2006.
For owners Rob Carr, Stephanie Cook and Kerry Burke and their Northshore 370 Rumba that sails from the host club, netting a few trophies is only one reason to front up year after year.
“In our Performance Spinnaker division, we sail against a whole heap of 28 to 34 footers of similar speed; that’s the fun bit. The party on the MHYC beach on the Saturday night is fun too, though we’ve been known to give away our day one advantage by partying too late.”
Rumba has recorded mixed results over 15 years.
“As a general rule we’ve been in the top three in the last five to six years. Before that we were a bit ad-hoc,” Carr laughs.
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He’s hoping for 12 to 15 knots of wind and flat water on Sydney Harbour.
Sydney’s long-range forecast points towards steady 15 knot southerlies on Saturday and a fickle Sunday morning before a single-digit east nor’easter develops across the afternoon.
Standard entries have closed though MHYC may accept late entries up until midnight on Thursday March 4. View the starting list and enter here.
The sailing instructions are published here.
Performance Spinnaker is the most popular entry category and for the first time these divisions will also be scored on ORC, including both ORCi and ORC Club ratings. ORC Club is growing rapidly around the world and several Sydney clubs (MHYC, RSYS and RPAYC at this stage) have adopted this as a low cost, simple rating system to run alongside the usual Performance Handicapping System.
The International J/70 state title plus the Super 20, 30 and 40 divisions promise hot competition at The Sound, the area of deep water inside North and South Heads, just one of seven course areas that will operate across the harbour and offshore thanks to race officials, volunteers and support vessels from multiple partner clubs.
MHYC thanks Manly Yacht Club, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club, Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club, Royal Australian Navy Sailing Association, Sydney Flying Squadron, Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and Sydney Amateur Sailing Club.
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