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ePaper created 2014-06-11, 13:05:34 | version 1.30.01
71 out of nine starts. Paul Elvstrom, DEN Sailed on Patrician. Four time Olympic Gold Medallist, 1982 World Half Ton champion. Seventh place on count-back with 4 points. John Cassidy,AUS Sailed on Psyche II. World champion in Fireballs and Flying 15’s, and 1980 Australian Match Racing champion. Eighth place with 3 points. Rod Davis, USA Sailed on Paprika. 1981 Congressional Cup winner and runner-up in 1982. Won seven out of nine starts but was beaten on the windward legs. Ninth place with 2 points. Brad Butterworth, NZ* Sailed on Progress. At 22 years old he was the only regular Stewart 34 skipper competing. Tenth place on count back with 2 points. *Stewart 34 owner or skipper. “After winning the first two matches of the series, Chris Dickson never lost his position at the head of the fleet, although he had to share it at the end of the first and second days; and there were moments of drama for him when a tough fight with defending champion Harold Cudmore had to be resolved in the protest room,and when he and fast-improving Ian Murray met at five-all on the last day, with the loser certain to be put out of contention for the Cup. Dickson lost the protest but he beat Murray to win seven out of his nine match races.” Sea Spray May, 1982 On the first day of competition, Doug Pye, one of Harold Cudmore’s crew, was struck by the boom and sustained a head injury. Cudmore immediately transferredPyetoWarwickBrowne’sboat,whichwascarryingapresscontingent. Cudmore called for his friend, the Auckland star reporter Alan Sefton, to take his place. Sefton wrote a brilliant account of the day in his article entitled Welcome to my nightmare (see DVD-ROM). Cudmore later commented;“This is the best series so far. I’ll come again if I’m asked.”This was after he had lost two protests and had suggested changes to the refereeing system with an experienced yachtsman as an impartial observer and armed with watch and tape recorder as they had been doing at Lymington for the last two years. Given heightened level of competition in the Citizen and the increasing number of races being decided in the protest room, Cudmore’s suggestion was quite timely. Paul Elvstrom, who’s introduction to match racing was at this Citizen, disagreed with the current starting procedure that has boats battling for the advantage before the gun: “You try to kill each other before the start, and when one gets away first, that is the end of the race before it has started. After that it is usually one yacht following the other to the finish. A yacht race should take place round the course, not behind the starting line.We have made the racing rules so that starts will be as fair as possible, but match racing goes against that.” Bill Miller, who has been known to keep an exhaustive data base of racing statistics, both in his head and jotted on the back of recycled paper, minced no words in his response to Elvstrom’s comments; “He is incorrect. For many years in match racing the lead changed in at least 37% of races on average.” By this time, the media had fully embraced the Citizen Watch Match Racing Series as they would any other major sporting event like rugby or cricket. A letter from K. McEwen of TVNZ indicated that TVNZ was interested in continuing to televise the event throughout the 1980’s. All those present at the Match Racing Committee meeting were pleased that TVNZ considered this Chris Dickson sails Princess past Brad Butterworth on Progress to win the 1982 Citizen Stewart Association Collection Sailing icon Paul Elvstrom helms Patrician to a 7th place finish in the 1982 Citizen Eric Sugden Collection