Hosting arrangements for our Overseas Visitors

We anticipate hosting around 100 overseas visitors from Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Russia and the US of A for a week during the Challenge.

Tradition dictates that all you have to provide is a bed and breakfast, maybe one or two evening meals plus a bit of transport.   It will be practical for working families to be involved if they wish.   The sailing and social programme has not been set yet but you, as hosts will be very much involved in the fun week.

If you are interested in hosting one or two visitors, please contact either Bill Haskell on 4984 7055, Jeanine Wilson on 4928 3111 or Ted Tindall on 0409 466955.   Participants are expected to arrive on Saturday 17th March and to depart on Sunday 25th.

Visitors will be coming from Bellingham USA, Victoria Canada, Tateyama Japan, Nahodka Russia and Tauranga NZ.

There will be welcoming and farewell functions on Sunday 18th and Saturday 24th and we have allowed for a member of each host family to attend both functions.   Additional family members will, of course be welcome, but due to budgetary constraints, extra tickets will be at cost.

This is a great opportunity to make some new international friends.

For more information about this event please click here

Pacrim here at Port Stephens next March

To view our new Pacrim site, click here.

This is Bill Haskell's article in the June 2011 edition of the Quadrant.

PACIFIC RIM YACHT CHALLENGE 2012

The next big event on the club’s busy sailing calendar is the staging of the Pacific Rim Yacht Challenge regatta which will start on March 17th and end on March 24th 2012.
This very important event is part of the Sister Cities Committees from around the world and we will be hosting teams and supporters from Tateyama, Japan, Victoria, Canada, Tauranga, New Zealand, Nakhodka, Russia and Bellingham, United States of America.
These Challenges are held every two years and it was held in Port Stephens during the year 2000 which was the year of those fantastic Olympic Games. Our club in conjunction with members from the Lake Macquarie Yacht Club who live in the Port Stephens area have participated in these regattas since their inception in 1990 and many great friendships have developed over the years so it is now our chance to help develop these friendships and hopefully make many more.
To do this your club will be looking for several volunteers to assist with the running of this regatta. The Port Stephens Sister City Committee is providing a lot of valuable experience and knowledge about this sort of event so with this kind of assistance and our knowledge of organising sailing regattas I am sure we can make it an event to remember.
The Port Stephens Council is in full support of this event and they have offered to assist where required. It should be mentioned here that Councillor John Bartlett was a great supporter of this event and as a result he presented the Pacific Rim Yacht Challenge Shield that is presented to the winners of the series. A business meeting is held at these regattas and they are now known as the “ John Bartlett Memorial Meeting” in honour of the great job that he did.
We have formed an organising Committee to run this event - meetings are held on the first Tuesday of each month. John Way, Bill Haskell, Deirdre Roberts and Bill Armstrong are representing our club. Ted Tindall, Arthur Heiler and John Smith are representing the PS Sister City Committee along with Ken Buckingham and Jeanine Wilson from the LMYC and PSSCC.
The volunteering is off to a really good start with the Hood and Etchell owners making their yachts available for this regatta. Each team will have seven sailors and a maximum of thirteen supporters and officials which means a total one hundred participants will require “Homestay” accommodation for the duration of this regatta. This is where you as boat owners, crew or social members can become involved for the supply of a bed, breakfast and the odd evening meal. We will also require volunteers to cover the following tasks: Homestay coordinators to assist Jeanine Wilson; Meet and Greet Hosts and Hostesses; Transport and Tour Organisers; someone to make up a program and organise the printing of it; photographer;
cut lunch packers; coffee makers for first thing in the morning; merchandise sellers;
Start Boat crew; Support Boat crews; owners of larger yachts or motor cruisers to take out supporters to view the racing; Race Committee; someone to display race results; someone to organise the printing and displaying of the weather forecasts each day; BBQ cookers; bar staff and refrigerator re packers and most importantly a crew from our club to sail in this regatta!
As it can be seen it is going to be a big event but we can do it.
Any initial enquires should be made to Bill Haskell.