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ePaper created 2014-06-11, 13:05:34 | version 1.30.01
80 the strong winds. This took about a minute. It was back to racing but, needless to say, Packer was beaten by Royden in that round. In light of the accident and several cases of gear and equipment damage that day, some of the Stewart 34 owners were reported to be unhappy that racing had been allowed in such marginal conditions. Gusts were coming down the harbour at 30 knots. While it provided spectacular racing,it didn’t do much for the owners’hearts. John Shadden went through three mainsheet blocks,a kite halyard and wind-gear,Royden had to repair one of his winches and Chris Dickson changed boats after finding the spreaders cracked on his yacht. Combined with the aggressive pre-start gybes and boat-handling, it meant a lot of strain on the yachts. Although the Squadron does have an insurance cover for the yachts during racing, it does not cover the wear imposed-which will only show up halfway through the next winter series-or the numerous minor things, such as chipped paint and so on. Speaking for the owners, Bill Miller (owner of Pionnier) said Saturday’s racing showed a lack of compromise between the owner’s boats and chequebooks and the demands of television and spectators, who were keen for racing to proceed.” NZ Yachting, May 1987. It probably wouldn’t have mattered if damages were immediately repaired. Off the water, the Stewart 34 owners became even more disgruntled with the arrangement. The same issues persisted; boats were lent for minimal charges, damage inevitably occurred in the heat of racing and payment for repairs was slow in forthcoming. The Squadron again failed to respond to the Stewart owner’s pleas for a better system to address reparation issues. Furthermore, as the racing became more competitive, the international skippers wanted to man the boats with their own, hand-picked crews, despite the fact they were still borrowing the boats from the owners. The owners or their representatives were often treated as novices, or in some cases, bumped from the boat altogether. The Stewart Association would find it very hard to convince enough owners to lend their boats for the following year’s racing. The situation was exacerbated by the Squadron’s reluctance to accept wooden Stewarts in spite of “swing test” evidence proving that there was little more than cosmetic differences between the wood and fibreglass Stewarts. Princess, the only wooden boat to sail in the last two Citizens,had podium finishes in both series. At a special meeting of part of the Match Race Committee held on 27 August 1987, attended by three Squadron Flag officers, the Chairman of the House,the Principle Race Officer and two Stewart Association representatives,it was obvious that change was in the air. Nothing was officially told to the Stewart representatives by the Flag Officers other than that they would never do anything to harm the Stewart Class, and if ever a change was in fact contemplated, the Stewart representatives would be the first to be informed. At the next Race Committee meeting held two months later on 27 October, Chairman Richard Endean advised the meeting that WarwickBrowneof CitizenWatchhadtoldhimthatCitizenWatchhadindicatedtheirdesiretocontinuetheirsponsorshipof the MatchRaceSeries. Itwasstatedintheminutesthat“weshouldcontinuewiththeStewart34’sformatchracing.” Oncetheminutes had been posted to all sixteen members of the Match Race Committee by 31 October, presumably all of those members were proceeding with plans for the 1988 Match Racing Series with Citizen Watch and Stewart 34’s as part of the event. Not exactly. Two days later a fully attended meeting of the Squadron Match Race Committee was held, where different views were exchanged. Amongst other things,Commodore Don Brooke expressed the opinion that goodwill was requisite in settling damage claim issues. BillMillerrepliedthattheonlypeoplelending$60,000to$100,000boatsweretheStewartowners,andthatbarringthesponsor, none of the parties making all the decisions had any of their own assets involved. Miller further questioned the Commodore as Pack attack! Chris Packer slams into the committee boat after a wild broach NZ Yachting