Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2014-06-11, 13:05:34 | version 1.30.01
65 feeling that the event was theirs to do with whatever they liked. Unfortunately the rise in interest in“their event”appeared to be somewhat tainted by a few lapses in the common sense the Squadron applied to its future. One example is in their newsletter of March 1979 when the Squadron announced that they were running an international match racing series in Stewart 34’s for the Squadron Challenge Cup. No mention was made of the Stewart Association who had actually paid for the prize Cup. The article was concluded as follows:“Our thanks again to Citizen and to the New Zealand Yachting Federation.” Not a word of thanks was offered to the Stewart Association who conceptualized and brought the event to the Squadron and who would loan the boats to be raced. However thanks were given to the NZYF,the very entity that nearly sank the event a month earlier! To help cover costs in the second contest, to be run in 1980, it was decided by the Squadron that the Stewart Association, in addition to again lending their yachts free of charge, should organise and run a fund raising raffle. The Stewart Association happily complied in both 1980 and 1981 and raised approximately $1,500 each year which help offset the increasing cost of running the event. The first Match Racing Committee Meeting after the contest was held on 1 May 1979. Warwick Browne and Ken Lusty, representing the sponsors, were welcomed to the meeting and invited to speak. Warwick Browne indicated that Citizen would be happy to consider sponsoring the event again in 1980. He also indicated that he was confident that a very small committee of three,with the power to act,should run the next event. Still intoxicated by the euphoria from the 1979 event,the Squadron’s committee passed such a motion, and appointed Tony Bouzaid, Warwick Brown and Tony Yates as the Officer of the Day to run the 1980 event. Two of the three on this new committee were Squadron members. The rest of the committee that had worked so hard to make the first event a success were essentially discarded like yesterday’s newspaper. Bill Miller recalled that shortly after this meeting, he received a brochure from the Long Beach Yacht Club regarding the 1980 Congressional Cup Contest. The Congressional Cup was for many years considered the benchmark for this type of match racing event world wide. In the brochure was published the names of the members of the organizing committee-all 125 of them! Perhaps 125 was a bit of overkill, but one could not dispute their results. TotheStewartAssociation,itappearedasif theSquadronhadessentiallyhijackedtheevent,evenif itwasinthemostpolitefashion. Responding to questions in two letters from the Stewart Association,the Squadron’s Secretary,Douglas Dick,commented: 1. Thanks for your Association’s donation to the Squadron Prize Fund. 2. Match Racing a. The Stewart Match Racing elimination series is a Class Association event but the Squadron will be happy to assist. b. The International Series is seen to be a Squadron event, the organization being the total responsibility of the Squadron. Yours sincerely, Douglas Dick. Proving once again that no good deed goes unpunished, the Stewart Association was virtually sacked after the very first Citizen Watch Match Racing Series in New Zealand, despite its tremendous success. While the Stewart Association felt slighted that they had brought the idea to the Squadron and done much of the hard work to get it going, only to have it pulled out from underneath them, they continue to cooperate with the Squadron for another ten years, rather than let a great event go by the wayside. But over time, little by little, the Stewart Association continued to lose traction with the event. In December of 1979 the Stewart Association Secretary wrote to the Squadron submitting the list of the ten Stewarts that could be used in the 1980 International Series and requesting the use of the main hall for the StewartAssociation’s annual prize giving dinner, which was to take place in March, just before the 1980 Citizen Watch Match Race Series. The Squadron responded accepting the list of yachts to be used for the International Series,but declined permission to use their rooms for the prizegiving, stating that“there is no possibility of the Squadron as a Chartered Club being able to obtain a special [alcoholic beverage] licence to open on a Sunday.” Once again, the Ponsonby Cruising Club came to the rescue of the Stewart Association, offering the use of their facilities. The