Gday everyone,

Heat 3 of the NSW GPS series is coming up over the weekend of 12th-13th December (end of next week) up on beautiful Wallis Lake, near Forster. The series is generously sponsored by The Windsurfing Shed, Boab Boat Hire and Wicked Promotional Products.

This event is a different to the Sanctuary Point event from a few weeks ago, in that it is GPS Freerace and Handicap only. We'll be sailing both days, from dawn till dusk, to crown the GPS Champion of Wallis Lake.

Also it's a whole weekend event, so we'll be getting together for dinner on Saturday night (and maybe Friday too!) at the Pacific Palms Recreation Club (The Recky) and a few of us are camping together at the Tiona Sundowner park.

When
- Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th December 2015
- Registration Saturday morning at Great Lakes Sailing Club from 10am, Sunday TBA
- Sailing period - dawn until dusk either day for Handicap, with Freerace 30 minute periods to be run throughout the day based on wind condition

Where
- Sailing from either Great Lakes Sailing Club, or Booti Point depending on wind direction and lake conditions
- Camping at Sundowner Tiona - tiona.sundownerholidays.com/ - We are booked into campsites around site 260/261 (Lake Access Powered Sites) - $36/night
- Non camping accommodation in Pacific Palms, Blueys/Boomerang Beach etc or in Forster - www.stayz.com.au/search/keywords:blueys-beach-nsw-australia?view=map
- Dinner Saturday night at the Pacific Palms Rec Club bistro - www.pprc.com.au/






How Much
- Weekend entry is only $30! (covers 1 or 2 days of sailing)
- Pay in cash at rego, or do an electronic deposit beforehand to: Marmong Point Sailing Club, BSB 062827, Acct 00901519 - Please put your name in the Reference field so we know who has paid
- For those who pay online or have already joined the series, thanks, we'll have a list of names at rego
- If you're not a member of an AWA club, we can grant you "guest" membership for the weekend at no extra cost

What are the sailing conditions?
- Long range forecast is showing strong southerly for Saturday, then NE Seabreeze Sunday
- The lake is relatively shallow so only has small chop
- A weed fin is handy to get onto the small weed banks, but shouldn't be required for the majority of the lake

What kind of GPS can be used?
- Locosys GT11, GT31, GW52
- Canmore units which can export a FIT file
- Garmin Foretrex, other watches which export a GPX file
- Sorry but the GPSLogit app is currently NOT approved for the event (See GPSTC site)
- If your device requires a cable/cradle to download the files, please bring it along so I can get your data. Or you can email me the file when you get home.

Whats a GPS freerace event? How is it scored?
- Basically, everyone goes sailing, then at the end of each day hand me your GPS and we will crunch the numbers in the software to find out everyones results
- Each day will be scored separately, then the placings for the two days will be added together to give you a weekend result
- This year we will have two divisions, Freerace and Handicap
- Freerace is determined by who can sail the furthest distance (ie highest average speed) during a defined 30 minute session (eg 2:30-3pm). Conditions permitting we will run two or more of these 30 minute sessions each day. This is the same format as last season.
- Handicap takes into account all of your sailing during the calendar day, and compares it against your GPSTC top 5 results for 2sec, 5x10, Alpha and NM. The person closest to their top 5 average is the winner

The Handicap sounds interesting - can you explain more about it?
- The Handicap division was based on feedback during the off season that people wanted to bring the inclusiveness of the GPSTC into the NSW Series
- The winner is the person closest to their GPSTC Personal Bests (PBs)
- Matt Dowse had the initial idea, and Mark from GPSTC provided the technical know how to automatically get everyones GPSTC top 5 from the website
- As an example, my (fairly unimpressive) Top 5s are:
- 2sec: 34.62, 34.05, 33.25, 31.86, 31.77
- 5x10: 32.43, 31.63, 30.77, 29.42, 29.291
- Alpha: 21.57, 21.17, 21.16, 20.91, 20.89
- Nm: 27.68, 26.1, 25.42, 24.83, 24.11
- So my handicap is the sum of all these numbers, divided by 5 (average of top 5) = 110.586
- During the event, if I had the following results
- 2sec: 28.5
- 5x10: 25.2
- Alpha: 18.5
- NM: 22.6
Then total/"day score" would be the sum of these four results = 94.8
My net score is my "handicap" (110.586) minus my "day score" (94.8) = 15.786
I will tally up everyone's results for the day and the person with the lowest NET score will be the winner. Their score could actually be negative if they break PBs.

The Handicap sounds confusing, I'm not sure I understand?
- The good news is that it doesn't matter!
- All you need to do is
- Turn GPS on at briefing
- Go sailing at any period during the day (including the freerace periods) - be sure to focus on getting a good result for 2sec, 5x10, Alpha and NM
- Turn GPS off when you de-rig, and hand it to me
- I'll copy the GPS tracks onto my laptop and the software will take care of the hard work!

What kind of support have the sponsors provided?
- The Windsurfing Shed contributing towards costs of the t-shirts and supplying prizes for winners
- Boab Boat Hire provided us with discounts on boat hire for the Sanctuary Point GPS and Slalom State Championships event
- Wicked Promotional Products providing the series t-shirts at heavily discounted prices
- Also, Adam Craven from Stormriders has handmade some excellent trophies for the series winners

Looking forward to seeing lots of people at Wallis Lake at the end of next week.