A fund-raising PaddleNSW sanctioned 2-day team event designed to challenge both brain and body and to promote better care of our waterways.
• Lots of generous prizes and ways to win them – you don’t have to be Superman or Wonderwoman to be successful
• Teams consist of 2 people paddling skis or kayaks – singles or doubles
• A combination of navigational skills, route and tidal planning and paddling ability will determine the winners.
• An Interclub competition for boasting rights also included
• A great way to get some good training in for the Classics – potentially close to 100 kilometres to cover the full course
• Gain new skills or hone existing ones
• Pre-event familiarisations available

HOW IT WORKS
Rogaining on water in paddle-powered craft best describes this event.

Using the maps and information provided by the Event Organisers, participants, in teams of two, need to identify the location of around 30 checkpoints located in the event area (on Broken Bay, arguably Sydney’s most beautiful waterway) which has a perimeter in the region of 100 kilometres. They will have the opportunity to begin this task well in advance of the event (up to 2 weeks – will depend upon when individual entries are received).

During the two days of the event itself, teams will endeavour to paddle to as many “live” checkpoints as they can in the time allocated on each of the two days of the event. They register that they have reached a checkpoint by punching their control card, provided to them by the Event Organisers, with the unique punch found there. Each checkpoint has a points value (some higher than others).

Teams are advised of “live” checkpoints at the start of each day. For safety reasons, wind and swell forecasts will be a major factor in deciding which checkpoints will be live on each day.
Some of the checkpoints provide the opportunity for extra points to be gained by correctly answering a question (related to the environmental impact of plastics on our waterways) on a card attached to the checkpoint.

Also, further points can be gained from an on-water plotting (resection) exercise where accuracy is the objective (“nearest to the pin” in golfing parlance).
Points will be lost through late return and any observed non-compliance of the Conditions of Entry. The team within each class that ends up having the most points after any bonus and penalties have been applied wins its class. There will also be an outright winner – i.e. the team with the highest nett points regardless of class. Prizes will also be awarded to the team that accrues the highest amount of points from the bonus point questions and the team that provides the most accurate result in the plotting exercise.

Teams decide which checkpoints they intend to visit – there is no specific route they need follow. Tidal planning and appreciation of wind direction and speeds (current and forecast) will be factors that need to be considered.