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With hot, sunny days and strong, steady winds we couldn’t have asked for a better weekend for the 2015 Lawson’s Dry Hills New Year Regatta on Jan 10th and 11th . The fifty yachts and 266 crew that participated were treated to the best the Marlborough Sounds had to offer in both weather and racing.
Images from Waikawa Boating Club's Facebook page, more here
The PIC Insurance Invitational race on Jan 9th was an excellent shake-down run allowing the skippers to fine-tune their yachts and crews for the next two days of exciting competition. Day one of the Lawson’s Dry Hills New Year Regatta saw the wind pick up just in time for the race one to get underway. With three fast-paced jaunts around the cans for division one, two and three and two longer runs in the Sound for division four and five the first day of racing saw the yachts and crew pulling out all the stops to get the best performance from their craft. The competition on day one was especially tight in division four and five with Khamsin and Key Largo and Playwright and Heatwave in top places and sharing the same points score in their divisions.
Day two dawned with an identical blue-bird sky to Saturday and after a short delay waiting for the wind to build the races commenced with all boats raring to go. There was excellent competition all weekend, with special congratulations going to Reprieve, Blue Magic, and Overspray who all took at least three first place finishes over the six races in the regatta. The final results showed four of the five winning yachts to be local Waikawa Boating Club boats with Overspray from the Naval Point Club in Lyttelton representing the visiting talent.
Juliet Abbott, Rear Commodore Sailing, praised the solid team effort that saw thiry-nine volunteers hard at work organizing and running the Lawson’s Dry Hills New Year Regatta. Their dedication was integral to the massive success of the weekend which Abbott summed up by saying “it’s all about the people- from sponsors to volunteers and skippers and crew” And all involved thoroughly enjoyed the best weekend of the year at the Waikawa Boating Club.
Lawson’s Dry Hills New Year Regatta 2015 results:
Division 1
1. Reprieve-Matt Michel
2. Jive Talkin-Stephen Page
3. Midnight-Chris Webb
Division 2
1. Blue Magic- Matt Hannah
2. Flying Machine-Craig Edwards
3. Legacy 2-Colin Lock
Division 3
1. Overspray-Shane Smith
2. Eagle-Mark Howard
3. Outlaw-Bill Hall
Division 4
1. Khamsin-Dave Kelway
2. Key Largo-John Moody
3. Floozie-Ron Ives
Division 5
1. Heatwave-Ron van Velzen
2. Welcome Home-Tom van der Burgh
3. Playwright-Ian Michel
