Png's First Open
p. 87 · Read in the full issue
Ocean Race
An ocean-going race, to be held in May by the Papua Yacht Club in Port Moresby, will be Papua New Guinea’s first interna tional ocean race. It will be sailed over about 1,303 nautical miles from Noumea to Port Moresby.
The race will begin on May 28, soon after the finish of this year's annual Sydney-Noumea yacht race.
The Sydney-Noumea race, which is con ducted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, is being held this year for the fourth time. Between 30 and 40 yachts are expected to make up the race fleet which will sail from Sydney Harbour on May 7 Papua Yacht Club officials believe that probably half the fleet will be interested in following on by entering in the new Noumea to Port Moresby race. And, if the new event is a success, it could eventually lead to an annual triangular series of races Sydney to Noumea, Noumea to Port Moresby and Port Moresby to an Australian port.
The Papua Yacht Club is planning the event in conjunction with the Cercle Nauti que of New Caledonia. It will be sailed in two divisions one under the interna tional offshore rule with mark three rating handicaps, and the other as a cruising yacht event. The cruising division will be han dicapped by what the organisers described as "subjective assessment”. It will take into account the performance recorded in relation to the type of craft, seamanship
and navigation.
The event is being heavily sponsored by Air Niugini, PNG's national airline, which also helped sponsor the country's first in ternational air race 18 months ago. • MARINER, 34 ft yawl, where are you? asks Bruce B. McCloskey and wife, of 1113 Tangelo Isle, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33315, in a letter to PIM. They built Mariner in California about 35 years ago.
"We last heard of our Mariner as being in New Caledonia a few years ago, and once noted an item concerning a 34 ft yawl named Te Mariner in New Caledonia,”
Bruce writes. "We are most anxious for news concerning the little vessel that we once knew so well. We have been avid readers and subscribers of PIM for many years.”