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ePaper created 2014-06-11, 13:05:34 | version 1.30.01
88 Paul Elvstrom (Den),Iain Murray (Aus),John Bertrand (Aus), Helmer Pederson (H/Kong),TedTurner (USA),Gary Jobson (USA), Pelle Peterson (SWE) and the list goes on. The social events were comprehensive, and commenced with a welcome cocktail party on the Monday night, at which the owners, skippers and guests were welcomed. This was followed by a draw for the boats and sails. As each was allotted a boat he was then interviewed by Peter Montgomery who then introduced each boat owner to the visiting skipper. This was followed by dinner. On the Tuesday night after the first day of boat familiarization for the overseas contingent we held a Personality Race when approximately twenty Stewarts were skippered by personalities attached to or interested in the series. Such names as Peter Montgomery,Alan Sefton, Ray Colombus, John Malitte,Andy Haden,Terry McLean, Graham Veitch, Commodore Tempero (RNZN) and many others all taking part. It was a fun event. Wednesday night was the formal dinner night with a guest speaker. One of the best was Judge Mick Browne who had people rolling in the aisles. The three most important days were the Friday,Saturday and Sunday when the sailing took place, and we usually saw sailing of a very high calibre. Initially our people did not fare so well, but they very quickly learned and gave as good as they received, and from it developed some very notable yachtsmen such as the Dicksons, Coutts and Butterworths. On Monday night following the racing the prizegiving dinner was held at which The Squadron Challenge Cup and blazer was presented to the winner, plaques to all the competing skippers and the usual round of speakers. At the prizegiving in 1983 Ted Turner was one of the skippers taking part. After the presentations I asked him if he would say a few words. He agreed and gave an extemporaneous speech lasting about thirty minutes which was one of the most enjoyable and amusing you could wish for. In providing the boats for the racing the Stewarts went to considerable trouble to have boats of a very high calibre available. They were all weighed and balanced as necessary and then all the hulls were cleaned and rigging checked. When the visiting skippers took them over after the Monday night they had little if anything to complain about. At that time there was a mixture of wooden and plastic hulls in the fleet. It was very interesting that neither type prevailed in the racing at any stage and the statistics we kept over several series produced the same result. More importantly over the several years I was associated with the match racing we never once had a complaint about the boats used. That says a lot for the work and effort of the Stewart owners. Damage did occur to the boats mainly of wear and tear but nothing major except the time Russell Coutts managed to charge the committee boat Te Tainui owned by Max Hall. The repair bill was quite prodigious and thereafter Max used to rig long poles pointing outboard at deck level to repel boarders. Fortunately this did not occur. The racing was managed by the Squadron in the persons of Mike Bull and Richard Woodyear-Smith and a team of assistants. They did a particularly good job and everything ran very smoothly. The courses used were generally off North Head. Wind was always the determining factor with the upper limit at 24 knots. This limit was to avoid unnecessarily damaging sails or gear. The spectator fleet was always present and particularly on the Saturday Sunday race days when good numbers turned up. On the water judging was considered but was not favoured by the race committee at the time. It was subsequently successfully adopted with benefit. The series over the years produced some of the best match racing you could wish to see and the Squadron had much to thank the Stewarts for because without their boats the event could not have occurred. The boats were used up till 1989 after which the (Farr) 1020’s were used for a year and then it was the turn of the MRX’s. One of the most amusing events seen on the Auckland Harbour involved a well-known Stewart skipper,and it occurred during the Whitbread stop-over in 1986. We had persuaded most of the fleet to take part in an inner harbour race for the benefit of the local population. The day of the race was fine, but with relatively light wind and as the afternoon wore on the wind all but