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ePaper created 2014-06-11, 13:05:34 | version 1.30.01
47 The first New Zealand Keel boat class to independently organise and run their own championship races without the assistance of any yacht club. 1990 First class in New Zealand to have a championship series with no entry fees. 1992 First class in New Zealand to offer appearance money for every yacht in championship racing. 1992 The first New Zealand Keel Boat Class to introduce a full summer series of evening windward/leeward races. 2005 Withtheadventof MatchRacingitbecameobvioustotheStewartAssociationthatsponsorshipmustbecomeapartof yachting, as it had to most other spectator sports worldwide. Citizen Watch’s sponsorship made the International Match Racing Series a reality and the Canon New Zealand’s 17 year-long sponsorship of the windward/leeward racing series, provided great support to the Stewart Class.Without Canon’s sponsorship, the Stewart Association would not enjoy the financial health it has today. Behind every successful organization is a good management team. The Stewart association has always been blessed with good secretary/treasurers to manage the Associations resources,as well as forward thinking committees that have produced excellent long-term results. The message this sends to the New Zealand Yachting fraternity is that the Stewart owners have long term goals and are quite a responsible group of people. This has helped to maintain the value of the boats, surely a feature for anyone considering the purchase of this sort of yacht. A well equipped and maintained Stewart can fetch between $60,000 and $75,000. Provided the class remains healthy, one can expect that their investment will retain, if not appreciate in value in the years to come. The continued efforts on the part of the Stewart Association to keep costs low have meant that the cost to purchase, race and cruise a Stewart 34 is within the reach of the middle income New Zealand yachtsperson.The various committees over the years have been ever-vigilant to discourage, if not eliminate“chequebook racing,” which is a strategy on the part of a wealthy owner who attempts to buy a spot on the podium by investing more in gear, sails or otherwise to give his boat an advantage over his opposition. In providing excellent value for money, for both racing and cruising, the Stewart 34 remains quite unique. There are no entry fees for the Stewarts 20-race+ Championship Series. In fact,appearance money is actually paid to those who start. Furthermore, the appearance money increases every night the boat starts, encouraging a very high level of participation from all the owners right to the very end of the series. From a cost-per-race standpoint it doesn’t get much better than this for the amateur sailor. While money isn’t everything, it can be quite gratifying to realize that the other guy out there racing on the harbour is paying much more than you and not having any more fun. As well as the Stewart Association has worked over the years, it has certainly not been devoid of disagreements amongst its membership. Many other boat classes have disintegrated because of arguments relating to one-design issues. The Stewart 34’s were not originally designed to be a one design class. When formulating the class rules,there were of course the usual problems when trying to shift to one design.Overall the general acceptance of the correctness of the Class rules has been terrific.Only the Pendragon issue ever caused a major difficulty (See the Pendragon Affair, Page 41). Eventually Wayne Boberg, an International Protest Judge, and a fair-minded committee solved that problem. That was 25 years ago and the Association members should feel proud that after nearly 50 years of racing there have been very few contentious issues. Early in the 1980’s 19 fibreglass boats joined the fleet, increasing the total fleet to 63 boats. This was a large enough pool of yachts to ensure that there would be a big enough fleet to get sufficient starters in any one series. Quite a few classes have found that although there appeared to be enough boats built to support viable racing, a racing fleet just didn’t happen. Many owners do not wish to race and buy boats purely to cruise.Some one-design boats are sold to buyers outside of Auckland, and a few are even taken as far away as Australia, where they may in some cases be on-sold for much higher prices. The numbers are then not sufficient and the class starts failing. The Elliot 1050 is a prime example of a great boat that never quite got the necessary numbers to maintain quality class racing. There is an old saying that success breeds success. When Roy Dickson won the original Citizen Match Racing Series in 1979 against a host of international competitors, it was a huge success for New Zealand Yachting, not to mention the Stewart Class. In short order, the following well known New Zealand yachtsman, who had already achieved podium positions in either New Zealand Championships or in international events, began buying or crewing on Stewart 34’s: Don Brooke Ken Davern Brad Butterworth Warwick Fleury