2026 Marlay Point Overnight Race

After recently purchasing, (and a lot of work), our old Castle 650 Qui was finally back on the water and the Marlay Point was on the top of the “must do” list. We heard about the support for women in racing by the MPONR and Riley and that sealed our entry for this year’s race. Our crew have sailed together on multiple Australian Women’s Keelboat Regatta circuits and always have a great time, enjoying the comradery of the women’s sailing spirit and the fun of the off-water antics. 

Kate and Sarah grew up together sailing dinghies and keelboats on Port Phillip and 30 years later, not much has changed apart from relocating to the Gippsland Lakes and the requirements for knee pads becoming evident! Sarah is a regular onboard Etchells at Metung Yacht Club and competed in several Marley Points. 

Jo and Allicia also grew up sailing both overseas and around Australia. They have both chaired National Women’s Keelboat regattas and are both active in supporting pathways for women in sailing. This will be their first Marlay Point. 

We are excited to add another boat to the all female crew list and to the overall numbers for such a fantastic race put on by some amazing club members and volunteers. 

After sustaining chainplate damage during the Victorian Trailable State Tittles, the crew are racing to get her to the start line but are looking forward to being involved and hoping for some good weather.

The crew of WHO RAAH are excited to be competing in this year’s Marlay Point Race. Their entry brings together a group of friend who are usually found together exploring the calm waters of Bunga Arm as part of the annual week long sea scout camp that they attend in January each year. 

Keen for even more adventures together, Rosie, Andrea, Anna and Holly make up the crew of WHO RAAH one of four Bonito 22s competing in this years race.

Rosie, the youngest of the crew at 16, has been sailing dinghies on Port Phillip bay, this will be her first Marlay Point race and she is very much looking forward to completing her first over night race.

Andrea now in her 20’s grew up sailing on Lake Hume at Albury Wodonga Sailing Club, has spent many of the last few summers working on the Gippsland Lakes supporting young people to explore the beauty of the natural world. Andrea has competed in a number of Marlay Point races and is the driving force bringing the crew together for the race. Andrea is excited to be racing with her scouting buddies.

After a break of 25 years Anna is now returning to compete in her third Marley Point race. Inspired by the Swallows and Amazons books Anna starting her sailing adventures in primary school sailing at Sommers Yacht Club and moved to keel boats and ocean racing in her 20s. Always keen to see more women in sailing, Anna was part of the team that supported the development of Women’s Keel Boat Regatta in the mid 1990s.

These days Anna is mostly found happily messing about on boats with sea scouts across Victoria and enjoys supporting the next generation of young sailors. Anna is thrilled to be back competing in this years race with an all female crew.

Holly is the final member of the WHO RAAH crew. Holly has been sailing with her family all her life. This will be Holly’s second Marlay Point and she is excited to be racing against her dad and brother, Brook and Jack Felsenthal, but most of all she’s just looking forward to being with her other crew members and having a fun race.

No doubt you’ll see the smiles and hear the laughter of this happy crew in this years race as they lead the way for women in scouting. 

This year will be Marg’s 16^th Marlay and first with an all-female crew as usually we have sailed with a family crew, with an occasional mate to make up numbers.

The first was in 1991 in our TS16 Dawn Treader. We had heard about this race on the Gippsland Lakes and now had a boat that qualified to enter.

After 3 races in the Hartley we raced our Boomerang 20 Balderdash 4 times. A couple of races in a sonata 7, then we got a Noelex 25 for the next few. This time we are racing a Noelex 30.

Of the 16 races, we have finished 11 times, most of the DNF races being those light ones where the wind didn’t help us.

One year when Marg wasn’t able to race, the boys sailed the race without Mum! They finished!

Marg began sailing with Albert Park Yacht Club, then joined Melbourne Trailable Yacht Club. Getting involved with keelboats she joined Royal Yacht Club of Victoria at Williamstown, and took part in several women’s events including the AWKR and Port Phillip Womens’ Championship Series – with all female crews. For the past few years Marg has been a part of KISS, a program which is encouraging women to become participants in sailing, particularly in keelboats.

Now a member of GLYC, where her Noelex 30 Cut Loose is berthed, Marg, her daughter Jenny – who was crew on that first Marlay – along with Vicky Egan and Anne Delahay from GLYC will make up the crew for this race. Vicky has sailed in 5 Marlays, and Anne raced with an all-female crew in the 50^th anniversary race in 2018.

We are looking forward to a fun night on the water, and like all the other crews hoping for fair winds and a favourable current!

Our earliest family Marlays were in Dad’s Jubilee, but in the mid-eighties, in semi-retirement, my father founded Melbourne Trailerable Yacht Centre in Chadstone, when trailerables rolled out the door like caravans do today. He sold all different types, but his favourite was the Bonito 22, which he imported from NZ and distributed Australia-wide.

In 1988, I talked my then girlfriend and future wife, Lynn, into joining us for her first race, along with good friend Jimmy Henty, in the Marlay, where 651 yachts entered but only 169 finished. Two hundred-odd yachts elected not to start, which was a wise move given Loch Sport recorded 48 knots and eight boats sunk.

At one stage near Loch Sport, we broached and put the mast flat in the water. We were standing on the cockpit, a bit stunned, looking at the main in the water for what seemed like a long time, and I remember Dad saying, “It will come up, it will come up.” Of course, he had no way of knowing that it would — although he had probably read the brochure on the self-righting statistics.

I was a dinghy sailor at the time and looked over at the centreboard, but it was way too far away. Jimmy saved the day by releasing the kite halyard jammer, as the kite was holding us down, and up she popped.

In that race, we sailed anti-clockwise around Raymond Island, and I remember beating back towards Fort King Light. The big gusts would just lay us over and shoot us directly backwards until the breeze dropped to around 30 knots and the keel would bite and we would move forward — it was like snakes and ladders.

We won our division, so Dad was happy, but Lynn swore never to do another Marlay — and never did — quite rightly calling us mad.

This year, our kids are in battling Bonitos. I am crewing for my son Jack on his yellow Bonito 22, aptly named This Way Up, and my daughter Holly on another yellow Bonito 22 as part of an all-girl Sea Scout group. I am sure their Grandad will send down some fair winds.

The MPONR Committee are thrilled to receive their first entry for the new category of All Female Crew.

The All Female crewed boat is Swallow – an Explorer 16. Skipper Sue Burke said, “It is great to see women being encouraged to be more active and prominent in sailing. Really pleased that the MPONR is trying to promote more women to step up by having a trophy to award this year to the first all female crew.”

It wasn’t acknowledged at the time but Swallow came 5th in the 50th anniversary race 2018 with an all female crew (Sue Burke, Tammy Ballard, Helen McMahon) out of 80 entrants in division A that year.

Swallow sails regularly at Williamstown Sailing Club and in Explorer champs. She has also competed in the Port Phillip Women’s Championship series in 2022. They have been female only crew now for many years and don’t do too badly.

Nearly two years ago Sue and her husband bought a Defiance 30 which they sail from Hobsons Bay Yacht Club. Sue is currently the She Sails rep for HBYC. A group of women got together and  sail the female helm races and Wednesday afternoon pursuits in a mixed gender fleet. “We are currently the only all female crew on Wednesday afternoons and we are doing OK.” Two of these women will crew this MPONR – Susan Morwood and Sacha Koltun. Susan comes from a dinghy background and Sacha is a relative newbie to sailing but throwing herself into it with great zest.

Sue says, “We really enjoy sailing together as women, there is a great sense of achievement if we do well and we know we have done it on our own merits.”

Left 3 women are MPONR crew L to R Sue, Sacha, Susan. The other two amazing ladies are Jude and Marg.

Swallow is in the middle of this photo of that race, with the blue and yellow spinnaker. Tammy was a whizz on the spinnaker.

Darryn Dyer’s Story

The Marlay Point Overnight Race has become a bit of a ritual for our family.

My dad Glenn Dyer competed in the very first event on a 38 foot shawl Draft centreboard Ketch from Paynesville Named “Kismet”, while the majority of the fleet were Flying Fifteen’s. The few years to follow he sailed on a Flying Fifteen.

By 1973 dad had built a Waratah 21 twin bilge keel boat, this was just before Trailersailers became popular. She was launched two weeks before the 1973 race and was sailed down from Paynesville on the Saturday then back to Metung on the Saturday night. That was my first race as an 8 year old which started my connection with this great event.

We sailed the MPONR each year on “Banyandah” (Waratah 21) which was the only racing she ever did while we owned her through to 1982. In many of these overnight races we had my Grandfather Ken Dyer onboard as well, so there were often three generations on the boat.

In 1984 Dad bought a Noelex 25 so “Chariot of Fire” became our new ride for many years. Participation in the MPONR continued and Dad clocked up over 21 races before he missed one and from memory that was to be an official in the race.

I missed a race in around 1983 to compete in NACRA 5.2 State Championships, and another two in the early 2000’s due to new work commitments, but this didn’t stop the rest of the family from being there to help out on race day. Whether I’ve raced or not I have been a part of the running of the race since 1988.

For 51 years  I  have been involved in the race as a competitor, organising committee, Race Officer, rescue boat driver, sailed on ,Waratah 21, Noelex 25, Hartley 16,  Farr 740 sport, Inglis 27 (Ka-Boom), and numerous RL24’s including my own RL “Whatever”.

In 2000/2001 my kids, Rebecca and Mitch competed in the race for the first time kicking off the fourth Dyer generation to continue on with this MPONR tradition. I now have a 5 year old granddaughter so looking forward to boasting the 5^th generation of competitors one day soon. My Wife Annette has been helping out on race day for over 38 years. Our son Mitch usually comes home from Melbourne especially to help at the club and to sail if he gets a chance.

Since the 40^th race I have only sailed once being the 50^th, as it’s been all hands on deck at the club to run this event, however Mitch has sailed our boat about five times since 2008.

This is just a short run down on the Dyer family’s involvement in the MPONR over the years, all in all there hasn’t been a MPONR that the Dyer family hasn’t been involved in, in one way or another.

Four generations of Dyers involved in the MPONR.

Ken Dyer, my late Grandfather sailed 6 races

Glenn Dyer dad sailed 28 races

I have (Darryn Dyer) been through on the water 42 times, either racing or officiating.

Mitchell Dyer 8 races