A couple of comments from parents who supported the Wentworth College sailors on & off the water. The Parua Bay Regatta was a great opportunity for some of the younger Wentworth sailors to step up and take responsibility for their boats, and compete, without the assistance or direction of the older, more experienced sailors. Most of the junior sailors have had a lot of experience fleet racing, so their boat handling was very good, the challenge was understanding the team raci

TEAM SAILING SPRING REGATTAS Spring Regattas are traditionally training regattas and kick start the team sailing season, leading up to Nationals in April. It is a good time to catch up with old friends and rivals and to meet new teams. Between 11 – 13 October, there were two training regattas held, one at Whangarei and one at Taupo. The Parua Bay Team Sailing Spring Regatta was run by the Sail Northland Charitable Trust in conjunction with the New Zealand Team Sailing Associa

Day 1 was too windy for teams sailing, but the teams went on the water for 2 hours in the morning for coaching, then had rules sessions with Derry, speed work with Sharon Ferris and boat rigging with Alan in the afternoon. Day 2 saw 2 1/2 round robins sailed in 8-15 knots. Day 3 delayed starting due to light winds. Racing commenced before 11am, with RR3 completed & RR4 started, until no wind again stopped sailing with only 6 races to go. After a wait of almost an hour, the fi

October's AGM will be held at Whangarei Cruising Club on Thursday 12 October, but will hopefully have teleconference available. Note the upcoming Spring Training Regattas at Whangarei and Taupo, during the holidays (Wed 11 - Fri 13 Oct) and the Kerikeri Training Regatta in December. With planning progressing for next year's Nationals at Taupo, preliminary costings show that the event could run over budget by a considerable amount. We may have to return to Algies for 2018 and

The 2018 Secondary Schools Team Sailing Championships will be held at Taupo, (registration Sat 21, with sailing Sun 22 – Fri 27 April, ANZAC Day falls in the middle again). An Umpires’ course is expected to be held Fri 20 & Sat 21, as usual. In brief, Nelson felt that there was not sufficient time to make the most of holding the regatta there. Also, being at Taupo, will keep our event in synch with the starlings rotation. If booking flights, it is recommended that you fly in/

Well that’s it folks! Another year of team sailing completed. It’s all over, bar the after match-party and the formal dinner. It all came down to the last couple of races, with some very close racing finishing the week. Crazy team sailing stats were: 36 teams, approx. 250 students, more than 50 coaches, umpires and race management. 42 – 420’s racing continuously, nearly 12,000 kms sailed and 6,985 hoots sounded on the water. Umpires feedback was that they appreciated a ve

What a great day. After a short delay the breeze filled in as predicted to get racing started. Then exactly as forecast it shifted to require the resetting of the courses, but was then pretty much steady for the day. This made for solid close racing on the course, but some were challenged by the slight chop. Great sportsmanship was again mentioned particularly with the South Island teams who were doing their penalty turns (even before an umpire got to say anything!). The

Wednesday’s weather was an improvement on Tuesday, with a beautiful sunny day, however, the light wind conditions made for more challenging racing, as we struggled to get on the water until after midday. The light wind conditions made it very technical and the teams who really know teams racing and understand mark traps really came to the fore. 45 races were achieved in Gold and Silver, with Bronze Fleet completing 50 races. All three fleets have now completed Round Robin 2

RR2 is complete & repechages sailed. St Kentigern advance to the Gold Fleet & New Plymouth Boys drop down to Silver. Waimea move up to Silver ahead, with Mahurangi going to Bronze fleet. Regatta Points to come

The wind gods did not provide anything to commemorate from a sailing perspective today. While the weather provided a perfectly still and calm day for dawn services and Anzac Commemorations, we worked hard to get the few races away. With races not commencing till after midday, today saw a gradual easing of the wind throughout the afternoon with a few races not finishing within the 15-minute time allowance. These races had to be re-sailed. Even with the shortened course, the

The weather request from yesterday was delivered today, with the sun coming out and heating up the spectators and sailors alike, this also brought perfect teams sailing conditions and all fleets got to race in great winds to ensure that their focus was on tactics as much as boat handling. The morning started finishing off the Round Robin 1 series for the remaining fleets. Repechages saw Napier Boys elevated to Gold Fleet, with Mt Aspiring College to Silver and Glendowie movi

The weather provided perfect wind with a challenging chop, which made for excellent conditions for team sailing. Race Officer, Richard Brown, said today was a first for him with a total of 90 races completed on the Gold and Silver course! He said that the sailing conditions, coupled with the top-notch maintenance on boats and smooth operation on change-over boats made it a great success today. Silver fleet have completed Round Robin 1 with Napier Boys and Saint Kentigern fir

36 teams entered for this year’s regatta. Registration and weigh-in Saturday 22 April 1400 – 1730 at the Mahurangi East Community Centre, Hamatana Road, Snells Beach.Briefing also at the Community Centre, the doors will open just before 6pm. Daily briefings at 8:15am at SYC, Algies Bay. Due to the large numbers, we are limited to the number of people that we can have on the change-over boats. Only the coach or manager/duty person will be allowed and only if they are wearing a