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ePaper created 2014-06-11, 13:05:34 | version 1.30.01
99 Although there was very little wind,an interesting day of racing was enjoyed by the competitors.In the final New Zealand came from behind to defeat USA by the smallest point margin possible, mainly through some excellent sailing by Roy Dickson, who sailed right around Tom Blackaller on the last short windward leg of the race. Owing to lack of breeze the media and the Squadron did not show a lot of interest in the teams race. It was a shame because all the competitors thought it was tremendous.This was the first and last international team racing event ever sailed in New Zealand in keelboats. Overseas, there are many clubs sponsoring team racing, and as of 2008 was gaining in popularity. Despite the massive team racing event held by the New Zealand secondary schools each year, keel boat team racing is non-existent. One can only wonder what happens to all that keen interest in team racing on the part of thousands of teenage yachties? The Stewart Association did its best to keep team racing alive with some innovative events during the 1990’s. In March of 1990 The Stewart Association,in conjunction with the RichmondYacht Club organised yet another team racing event. Invitations were sent and accepted by the Ponsonby Cruising Club, the Wakatere Yacht Club (who had members with team racing experience), the Royal Akarana Yacht Club, the Richmond Yacht Club, the Buckland’s Beach Yacht Club, the Mercury Bay Boating Club, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and the Panmure Yacht Club. The twelve best and most evenly matched Stewarts were used over the two-day series and the competition was intense.The final series was won by The Ponsonby Cruising Club team with The Squadron team second and Royal Akarana Yacht Club third. It was intended to make this an annual event but,although no damage was incurred by any of the yachts,a couple of the owners became reluctant to keep lending their yachts to others to race.This again was a great shame,particularly as a special,very tough, anti-collision clause had been added to the sailing instructions. It read: “Attention is called to Rule 32 which will be strictly enforced. The yachts have been loaned free of charge by the Stewart 34 owners in good condition. In no instances will it be necessary to establish the fact of any incident or foul by means of a collision. AnycollisionmayresultinprotestsbeinglodgedbytheO.O.D.,theRaceCommitteeorthejudges. Theresultof suchactioncould be the disqualification of ALL the boats involved in the incident and or theirTOTAL exclusion from the remainder of the regatta.” A few more Stewart 34 Teams Race Events were held in the early 1990’s. When it became apparent to the Ponsonby Cruising Club that their longstanding relay event was having difficulty obtaining sufficient entries,the StewartAssociation came up with a new idea.The concept was to have aTeams Racing Event of six teams but of three different yachts,consisting of one Ross 930, one Stewart 34, and one Young 88 per team. This meant that each class had to provide only six yachts, which was considerably easier to accomplish. A joint team of administrators was set up.ThreeTV stations,two radio stations and LiptonTea were enticed to sponsor a team each. Each boat was crewed by its own skipper, three of his regular crew, one representative from the sponsoring organisation and one from each of six Secondary schools which were invited to participate. This overcame the main difficulty of having to lend the boat and also gave the sponsor an active interest.It also enabled a co-joining of interests between keelboat teams racing and some of the best team racers from the local secondary schools. The regatta went off very well in excellent weather. The winning team was the TV3 sponsored team with the Kristin School, supplying the student expertise. The three boats making up the team were the Ross 930 - Scarlet Fever, the Stewart 34 Pionnier and the Young 88 – Smokey. Because of generous sponsorship, $200 was shared by the winning team and $500 of spot prizes was presented to others in the fleet. A similar event was held on the 4th April 1998, but unfortunately there was a very strong breeze, some of theYoung 88’s and Ross 930’s elected not to race in the the conditions,which made the event a no go.Unfortunately since then there has been no interest in team racing events.The main reason,at least for the Stewart 34 Class,is that there are 22 Hyundai summer championship races,6 Collinson-Forex autumn races, and usually about 49 Thursday Rum Races, the Squadron and Richmond alternating Wednesday evening summer races, and the Winter Series Races, making the yacht racing calendar so full that there is not much time for anything else. Nonetheless,there are still Stewart owners keen on teams racing and we hope to see some again in the future.