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86 champion 1987. Seventh place. Bob Wilmot,AUS Sailed on Playbuoy. Six world board-sailing titles. Participated two America’s Cups. Australia’s representative in the 1988 Olympics in Solings. Eighth place. Rick Royden, NZ* Sailed on Psyche II. Placed in the Kiwi Lager NZ Challenge. His fourth Citizen, second as helmsman. Ninth place. David Bedford, GBR Sailed on Prince Hal. J24 Champion in the UK in 1987 and the UK and Europe 1988. Tenth place. *Stewart 34 owner or skipper. Media interest in the Citizen was once again very keen. Large crowds of spectators still clambered up to North Head or headed out on the water on various spectator craft to watch the racing first-hand. If the Citizen Watch Match Racing Series in Stewart 34’s was never to appear again, public interest in match racing was to live on and become a permanent fixture in the New Zealand’s sporting and yacht racing scene. Later that year the Squadron announced that McDell Marine, in a joint venture with A. Foster & Co., Chandlers, would build a dedicated fleet of match racing boats called Farr MRX’s to be launched in late 1990. In the mean time, the 1990 Match Racing Series, sponsored by Steinlager, was sailed in a fleet of Farr 1020’s. Not surprisingly, the Stewart Association was never officially informed of these decisions. A letter addressed to Bill Miller from the Squadron dated 9 July 1980 stated: “However as regards the continuing use of Stewart 34’s for Match Racing the General committee passed the following resolution: The decision as to which design of yacht will be selected to take part in any match Racing Contest for the Squadron Challenge Cup will be reviewed annually, such decision being binding for the subsequent two years. In effect this ensures that at least two years warning would require to be given of any change though clearly this must be dependent on standards being maintained.” The Farr“MRX”is essentially a Farr 1020 with her cockpit,deck and appendages optimized for match racing. The 11 identical boats known as the“Millennium Fleet” were launched on 8 October 1990. The Farr MRX has served the Squadron well as a match racing boat, and meets the international standard for competition. The initial package included a strict ownership agreement ceding the boats to the Squadron for special racing events, as well as providing individual sponsors for each of the boats, helping to defray a significant portion of their annual maintenance and repair costs. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note a few facts about the Farr MRX. Firstly, they ultimately cost approximately 40% more to build than the firm quote tendered for the Stewart Sprint. Next, they are only just slightly faster than a standard racer/cruiser version of the Stewart 34, and based upon performance polars, slightly slower than projections for the fully optimized Stewart Sprint. While nobody would go on the record with me on this, more than one MRX owner to whom I have spoken to has said that some boats are“more equal than others,” possibly owing to the fact that there is apparently no official record of the boats ever having been individually weighed, let alone swing tested. Lastly and perhaps most surprisingly, each MRX is individually owned as well as having an individual sponsor. These were two of the key issues the Squadron had been trying to escape from during the Citizen years. From 1979 to 1989, the Citizen Watch Match Racing Series was one of the premier New Zealand sporting events. In the last eight years of the event, the world’s top match racing skippers came and raced in Auckland. No other sporting event has ever brought the worlds best to New Zealand for eight consecutive years. In those eleven years, 61 top helmsmen from all over the world raced against Chris Dickson slam-dunks his opposition and finishes first in the last ever Citizen. Warwick Browne collection