Heaven Can Wait 2013 - a full moon party and more AC35 insights
by Sail-World.com on 7 Oct 2013
Heaven Can Wait 2012 - Peter Hewson’s Storage King Wallop Greg Dickins
Less than 40 days to one of our favourite events, the Heaven Can Wait One Lap Dash, 12 hour and 24 hour races on Lake Macquarie. So, get on board now with your entry into one of the most unique charity sailing regattas in Australia and start fundraising for a great cause.
As RMYC Toronto Sailing Captain and event organiser Mel Steiner explains, some points to note about this year’s event:
'We have moved it to later in the year – November 16/17 when we hope the weather will be kinder to us
It is scheduled on a weekend closest to a full moon - hopefully making the 12 and 24 hour races a little more comfortable.
'The course will be reversed so that spectators will get plenty of photo opportunities – first seeing the boats start and heading towards Speers Point, and then a second time as they come back down past the start and head down to the other end of Lake Macquarie. '
An extended ABC interview with Bob and Sandy Oatley, provides a window into the 35th Americas Cup from the Challenger of Record's perspective.
Music to the ears of sailors, who want to ensure that the 35th Cup will have more of an emphasis on sailing. Somehow don't see Team Hammo wanting to spend time on legal BS, they just want to sail.
Certainly enthusiasm for the challenges ahead from Australia's preminent big boat sailing family, who have forged friendships with many of the players on the America's Cup scene. Reading between the lines, the excitement generated in the last week of AC34 seems to have decided the family they should be involved next time around.
Over the Ditch, Emirates Team New Zealand received an outstanding welcome home from their Kiwi fans on Friday, with a capacity, in fact over-flowing crowd Auckland’s waterfont.
New Zealand fans have a habit of turning feral on teams which don’t win – notably Rugby World Cups. However this welcome was a first for New Zealand, and clearly fans could see past the on the water result – which very nearly went the other way.
For a team who left San Francisco rather shell-shocked by not winning the 34th America’s Cup, the Auckland welcome was the tonic they required.
Clearly the fans want to see the team continue.
While Emirates Team NZ is an America’s Cup Team, it has also competed in the Volvo Ocean Race and we'd not be terribly surprised to see them in Alicante next year,.
The team has reached out to a new fan base, well outside the usual sailing afficionados, in fact the sailing set was well outnumbered on Friday. This is the People's Team.
There was a change of heart by the NZ Government too. While previously scathing of the decision by the previous administration for their $36 million backing of the team, this administration now realises how an extremely successful trade and export effort can be leveraged off sailing campaigns.
In fact the New Zealand Minister of Economic Development, Steven Joyce commented that while the fans would have preferred to have seen the America’s Cup end earlier (and with an Emirates Team NZ win), from NZ economic perspective the extended length of the America’s Cup itself was a huge bonus, as New Zealand surfed the steep wave of US media and industry interest.
As matters now stand the New Zealand Government seems to be even more keen than the Team on the next America’s Cup.
Any new Kiwi entry will be dependent on the new Protocol - and we'd expect to hear later of some quiet chats with the Oatley family who seem to have similar opinions especially on nationality, and cost reductions.
Right now as a priority can Bob and Sandy Oatley, Mark Richards, Iain Murray, Jimmy Spithill, Tom Slingsby, Kyle Langford, Nathan Outteridge, Glenn Ashby, Darren Bundock and Adam Beashel please take Tony Abbott for a sail on Wild Oats XI, they can meet him at the bottom of the steps at Kirribilli. Maybe with some overseas friends too.
We’re pleased to be able to announced that Sail-World.com broke existing readership records in September, with visits to the site topping a massive 1.2 million for the month. This is almost double the previous record of 650,000 set in September 2012, off the back of the Weymouth Olympics.
The history of these major events is they bring us expanded audiences and we hold a substantial portion of the newbies on every occasion.
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