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New Zealand won the inaugural Pacific Rim Inter-Schools Team Sailing Championships and also the Inter-dominion Trophy, overwhelmingly ahead of Australia at the three-day event held recently at Algies Bay, Warkworth.
A number of teams including the Cook Island Girls, New Plymouth Girls and most of the Australian teams arrived several days before the regatta and were able to get in some reasonable practise, thanks the New Zealand boat organisers. The Australians were equally supportive last year.
The weather was not the most co-operative, varying from 25 knots to 0 knots on Monday, with only 11 races held. Tuesday was a lovely day allowing 80 races to be completed. Wednesday started well, but after finishing all but one of the races needed to finish the fourth Round Robin, the wind died leaving an incomplete and therefore discarded round robin, unless the race could be finished.
After nearly four hours, a zephyr came in, a very tense deciding race was started, only to be abandoned with the first boat just 30 metres from the finish. This caused major changes to the results of the top four teams.
After coming second at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Team Sailing Nationals, Kristin School won the top team trophy, in a close contest ahead of the favourite Kerikeri High School, who had mixed results and finished fourth. With only one and a half points between the top four teams, Westminster School (Aus) were second, Wentworth College (NZ) third and two teams from The Friends’ School (Aus) were fifth and sixth.
New Plymouth Girls’ High School dominated the Girls’ fleet, retaining the Girls’ Trophy ahead of previous top team Napier Girls’ High School.
Rarotonga Sailing Club v New Plymouth Girls High School
Invited as part of the Pacific Rim, a girls’ team from the Cook Islands, representing the Rarotonga Sailing Club, came a very creditable third ahead of Ascham School and Canberra Girls Grammar School.
The regatta concluded with a formal prize-giving dinner, where guest-speaker and Olympic sailing medallist Polly Powrie, emphasised the factors of team sailing that helped her Olympic racing.
A very constructive meeting was held between the New Zealand and Australian Team Sailing Associations, with the main conclusions being that the regatta had been a very good event and all present are determined to continue to expand and improve the level of team sailing in the Southern Hemisphere, working closely together to form regatta frameworks for future events, hopefully involving more Pacific Rim countries.
