Issue date
What a weekend it was, the weather played the game and Evans Bay provided a full range of fantastic sailing conditions from no wind and beautiful sunshine (you can’t beat Wellington on a good day) through to a (more normal) cool 20ish knots on Sunday.
A total of 63 boats made the most of the weather and the 2014 Lidgard Sails Evans Bay Regatta was a great event, which saw the Bay full of sails in the same way the old salts always talk about it looking in “the good old days”.
Great racing was had by all fleets with a few notable points to happen:
- There were 24 visiting boats from a range of clubs including Muritai (6); Wanganui (4); Plimmerton (3); New Plymouth (3); Amokura Sea Scouts (2); Worser Bay (2) Napier (1); Horowhenua (1); Lowry Bay (1); & Taupo (1). A huge thanks to all those who travelled and made the weekend so memorable!
- Racing was incredibly competitive throughout every fleet, with the Paper Tiger results coming down to the final lap of the final race and the Hartley 16 result being decided in the final 50 metres of the final beat.
- Elliot 5.9 Seaview Sails managed to win the Division 1 Wellington Trailer Yacht Champs despite throwing their mainsheet hand over the side in the final beat of the last race.
- The Hartley 16 podium reads Wayne Holdt 1st, Jason, Holdt 2nd and Alan Holdt 3rd. I would suggest if you want to do well in this class and your name isn’t Holdt, you probably need to either change class or your name!
Full results can be found on www.ebymbc.org.nz or by clicking here.
A huge thanks to Lidgard Sails for their sponsorship of this event which included a $1,000 sail voucher as the major spot prize.
Also thanks to PRO Mike Appleyard, Nicki Johnson who gave up her weekends sailing to compile the results and all the other volunteers who gave up their time so that we as sailors could enjoy ourselves out on the water (and in the club afterwards!).
The boring stuff:
Saturday started with a very gentle (and very warm for Wellington) Northerly as racing got underway on time, unfortunately with a South Easterly forecast for the afternoon there was always the chance the northerly would drop out. And this is exactly what happened. The Paper Tiger and Trailer Yacht fleets managed to get a race in but unfortunately the centreboard, Hartley 16 and Javelin fleets missed the time limit.
After a small wait in conditions that every Wellingtonian dreams of (warm sunshine and no wind) a little southerly started to puff in and racing was underway again in a beautiful 8-12 knot breeze with just enough shiftyness to make racing interesting. Another three races were completed for each fleet and everyone was off the water after a long around 5pm. The race committee must have been making the most of the last day of daylight saving for the season!
Sunday dawned overcast with the threat of drizzle and a 15 to 20 knots which was rock solid from the south. The race committee again got things away bang on time and three races were completely by all classes before a couple of catch up races for those who missed the time limits on day one.
The racing was all over, everyone was packed up and prize giving held at 3.30pm.
