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The national keelboat championships will return to the annual yachting calendar in 2019 but there are also plans to ensure it's a truly national competition.
The 2019 national keelboat championships will be sailed in the MRX class.
The event was cancelled last year due to a lack of entries and even in its final year most of the teams came from the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's youth training programme.
As many as 20 teams competed in the mid-2000s and a glance through the names on the honours board indicate the esteem the event was once held - Rod Davis, Dean Barker, Adam Minoprio and Phil Robertson are previous winners.
"There's a big push to get it back to 20 teams from throughout the country," Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron sailing manager Laurie Jury said. "We are working with Yachting New Zealand and the MRX association to make it attractive and affordable. We're looking at $800 for four days of yachting when it used to be $1500 and we want to support people with things like boats and accommodation to make it easier for people to come back."
The national championships will be sailed out of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron on April 25-28 and regions and associations will be asked to express interest in attending by November 1. The notice of race should be finalised soon.
A formula has been worked out to allocate spots to various regions in an effort to make it a truly national event. It will see 20 entries handed out based on population, with Auckland gaining five entries and the likes of Southland and Northland one each. Regions or associations can pick a team to represent the region or choose to hold trials. Auckland, for example, will hold trials in early April.
The winners of a number of national championships, including the women's nationals, PHRF nationals and Young 88 nationals, will also get automatic entry.
"Once we have a decent fleet, we think people will want to be involved," Jury said.
The women's national keelboat championships is going through a similar revitalisation and there's a hope 20 teams will compete in next year's event.
Eleven teams competed in the 2018 national championships in Auckland, won by Karleen Dixon and her crew, which was the largest number of boats seen for some time. The MRX association played a large hand in making this happen, having provided both access to the boats across the summer on top of lower costs which made it more attractive for more teams to compete.
The one-design MRX boats will also be used for the keelboat nationals.
"It's pleasing to see the Squadron and MRX Yachting trying to expand this regatta to be a truly national competition," Yachting New Zealand chief operation officer Andrew Clouston said. "We look forward to sailors all over the country battling it out for the title next year."
