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With the summer of 2013 apparently willing to hang around for ever, the competitors in the Auckland Regatta were treated to superb sailing conditions – albeit mainly in the light to moderate wind range – for the three days of the contest.
Run jointly by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Bucklands Beach Yacht Club, racing took place on up to four courses at a time, split between the area around Northern Leading and Eastern Beach. Eighty five entries in 11 divisions entered, with two classes, the 8.5 multihulls and the resurgent Elliott 5.9s, using the event for their nationals.
International interest came in the Pacific Keelboat Challenge series, raced in the fleet of identical Farr MRX yachts. Three teams from Australia and one from New Caledonia took part, but local skippers, Harry Dodson, Pete Waters and Matt Bouzaid took the podium places.
The best international was the Royal Victoria Yacht Club entry (4th), followed by Sandringham Yacht Club (5th), Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (8th) and New Caledonia (9th).
In Division A, the racing was so close that the handicap results had two boats finish tied, with Georgia One, skippered by Rhonda McCrea, beating Equilibrium, skippered by Graham Matthews, on countback. Icebreaker (Connel McLaren) was 3rd. Chris Hornell's Bay of Islands entry, Kia Kaha, confirmed its lightwind performance credentials by convincingly winning the series on line and also taking the IRC prize.
Division B saw a mighty battle between two Elliott 12 yachts, with Sure Thing, skippered by Andy Anderson, edging past overnight leader Bullrush (Anthony Robinson) to take the series handicap victory, while Bullrush won on line. Tauranga entry, Frenzy (Roger Rushton), was 3rd.
In the open multihull division, the giant of the fleet, Team Vodafone Sailing (Simon Hull) had to withdraw after being dismasted on the opening day, when the forestay broke. Attrition ran through the fleet during the regatta to the extent that the final race had only two boats left.
The Extreme 40, XL, owned by Mike Drummond, took out the series with a comfortable 7pt lead over Shane Bellingham's Charleston with Ninja (Pete Geary) 3rd. XL also won the series on line.
In the 8.5 multihull divisions, Emirates Team New Zealand designer Pete Melvin, sailing a trimaran modified with his own floats and with two of the ETNZ-supported Youth America's Cup crew on board, won the title both on line and on handicap. Greer Houston’s Dirty Deeds was 2nd with Borderline (Andrew Potter) 3rd.
Also competing for a national title were the Elliott 5.9s. The series was extremely tight, with Simon Manning's The Blurr topping the leaderboard from Chris Maddock's Animal Crackers. Volvo Ocean Race winner Mike Sanderson's Stratis-Icebreaker finished 3rd.
In Division D, Damon Jolliffe's Motorboat posted one of the most dominant performances of the regatta, with a scoreline featuring seven firsts and a second to take out the series from Perfect Alibi and Candella. Motorboat also scored the double handicap and line victory.
The Elliott 7 division comprised the yachts used by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron Lion Foundation Youth Training Programme, which had a number of crews racing.
But, it was a graduate of the programme, Phil Robertson and his Waka Racing crew, who took out the series. Robertson is a regular competition on the world match racing series and showed his class with a scoreline of three firsts, two seconds and a third.
For the first time, the Ross 930 class competed in this regatta, with seven yachts taking part. On handicap, Andrew Pardington's The Entertainer put up a convincing display with five firsts and a second to its credit to take the series. Ian Thomsen's No Worries was nearly as consistent with four seconds and two firsts to finish second, while Arch Rival (Bryan Kelly) was 3rd.
The Farr 1020 division was closely-fought on handicap with Flashwave (Sandy Grigg) taking the series ahead of Rawhide (Paul Watson) and Share Delight (Mike Lanigan).
In the always-fiercely-contested Young 88 division, Lincoln Fraser’s Dangerzone missed the handicap-line double by just one point, but easily took out the line prize with a perfect score of eight wins, followed by Abracadabra (Zane Gifford) and War Machine (Paul McWilliams).
For full results, please see the event website:
Words and images by Ivor Wilkins
