Worlds first WASZP National Championships held in NZ

by Mike Pasco on 6 Mar 2017 The World’s first ever WASZP National Championships held in NZ at Manly Sailing Club on the fourth and fifth of March. The WASZP is a one design foiling dinghy that was launched onto the world sailing scene last year.

Andrew McDougall, the designer of the MACH 2 Moth, wanted to make foiling accessible to all sailors and has spent five years designing the WASZP to make it simple to Rig, Launch and Sail, and most importantly, to bring the price and ongoing cost of foiling down so that all sailors can afford to fly. The WASZP concept has been embraced by NZ Sailors and since its launch in August last year the fleet has quickly grown to 55 boats in NZ.

When the WASZP was first launched in NZ it was thought that the first season would be spent learning how to fly them and slowly building the class numbers. It was not envisaged that a NZ National Championship would be held, but NZ sailors have wanted to fly for a long time and so the number of WASZP in NZ has grown very quickly as have the flying skills of Kiwi sailors. The mix of Sailors (pilots) is also very broad with Male and Female and ages from 10 to over 60 such that it was decided to hold the Inaugural NZ WASZP Nationals and be the first country in the world to hold such an event.

The fleet raced as one, with divisions for Youth, Women, Open and Masters. The overall winner would win the Andrew McDougall Trophy (in honour of the designer) and the individual division winners would have their divisional trophy named after them to mark the importance of this inaugural event. Conditions at Manly were offshore and gusty, 5-20 knots with big swings and some big holes on Sunday. In most of the races the leading sailors could fly around the complete course and finish the races in 10 to 15 minutes. For those sailors still learning, turning and going around marks were the skills they are still working on and they were taking 30-40 minutes to complete the races. The learners ended up not scoring as they were not able to finish soon enough to get points.

On Saturday, there were 26 WASZPs on the start line and 24 on Sunday with 2 WASZP coming up from Wellington and Geoff Woolley flew in from Australia. It was impressive to see that many boats flying on a start line and the Top sailors had enough skills and confidence after a few starts, to Port tack the fleet on a number of occasions.

Henry Haslet from Wakatere narrowly beat another Wakatere sailor Tim Adair (who had gear failure for races 7 and 8) to win the Andrew McDougall Trophy. Henry Haslett also won the Henry Haslett Youth Trophy.

Sara Winther won the Sara Winther (Takapuna) Women’s Trophy. Jon Bilger (Kohimarama) won the Jon Bilger Masters Trophy.

Thank you to Dave West the PRO for this first ever WASZP event, Sean Paterson the Commodore of Manly Sailing, Mark Orams the President of the WASZP Association of NZ, www.nzsailing.net for the sponsorship and all the Manly Sailing Club helpers who made it such a great event.

Full Results and more pictures and video can be found on the NZL WASZP Facebook page and for more information about trying or buying a WASZP contact www.nzsailing.net.

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