Bill Beach, sculler, was born in England in 1850, migrated to Australia when just a small boy, and lived at Dapto all his life. According to local legend, he won his first rowing race as a teenager against a local publican, either for a bottle of brandy or 5 shillings. He took the brandy!
Beach competed in his first race on Sydney Harbour around 1875-76 and he won the handicap skiff race on Wooloomooloo Bay for a prize of £25. In other races he was said to have won £150 with which he built his home at Dapto. By 1884 he was competing for the championship of Australia and the right to race against the Canadian World Champion, Edward Hanlan. On 16 August on the Parramatta River, he beat Hanlan and won the world championship and defended it successfully twice the next year.
In 1886 Beach left for London and in August won the final of the International Sweepstakes on the Thames for a prize of £1200 . He defended his title later that year for another £1000 prize money and the world championship and then returned to Sydney in December. He was met by the president of the Rowing Association who congratulated him 'on his great achievements … [and] his steady, careful, upright and manly character'. Welcomed as a hero by band and banners, he was presented to Governor Lord Carrington and his lady on the way to Sydney Town Hall where he was met by the mayor and the premier and given an illuminated address. Special trains ran from Sydney, Bathurst and Goulburn in November 1887 when Beach again defeated Hanlan for the world championship. Beach won by three lengths in the presence of 5000 spectators.
According to Banjo Patterson, Beach’s successes started “such an orgy of sculling as never was seen in the world before.”
To start your short journey to the cache, at the given coordinates, count the number of times the letter ‘eff’ appears on the plaque (F), and note the date (AB/CD/LMNO).
To locate Waypoint 2, add F*O*(D-L) to the E coordinates and add B*C*(A-N) to the S coordinates .
At Waypoint 2, how old was Beach when he died (XY).
To locate the cache, subtract X+O from the new E coordinates and subtract M*Y from the new S coordinates.
Checksum for the cache S coordinates is 24, and for the E coordinates 30. Otherwise you should check your numbers and recalculate. Stealth will be required, particularly on weekends, when muggle activity could be very high.