Lindisfarne’s Quest to lift young sailors
LINDISFARNE Sailing Club is best known as a family-based dinghy club, but in a week some of its prominent members will head up an ambitious keelboat racing campaign with the successful ocean racing yacht Quest.
“We bought Quest, a Nelson Marek 43, specifically to give young dinghy sailors an opportunity to sail in a big boat … to give them a future adventure in yacht racing,” syndicate member John Lawrie, past commodore of Lindisfarne Sailing Club, said yesterday.
Quest has had a long and successful racing record in Victoria, NSW and Queensland, including placing second in the 1995 Sydney Hobart when owned by Bob Steel.
“Our racing campaign with Quest, delayed due to the virus restrictions, starts next Sunday, July 19, with the first race of the Combined Clubs Winter Series 2020,” Lawrie said.
“With more than 40 entries so far received, the quality of competition will be exciting and rewarding for our crew of young sailors. Later we plan to contest the Launceston to Hobart race as a lead-up to the 2021 Sydney Hobart.”
Members of the Quest syndicate include LSC commodore John Mills, Mills’ two sons Adam and Nathan Mills, Jay Nibbs and Vaughan Lynch. Nathan Mills will helm the boat.
“Quest was built by US boatbuilders Carroll Marine in the early 1990s and originally raced in Victoria, later being bought by Sydney yachtsman Bob Steel, who sailed her to a podium place in the 1995 Sydney Hobart,” Lawrie said.