Sailability Auckland - Waller Cup title to John Toole

by Tim Dempsey on 24 Apr 2013 The Waller Cup was contested over the weekend of April 20 – 21, and despite some very wet weather 12 sailors took to the water aiming to get their name on the trophy.

It was the closest racing we have ever had in the Liberty fleet with the lead often changing. This is testament to Coach Steve Cranch who has been head coach at Sailability Auckland since late last year.

John Toole is the 2013 Winner of the Waller Cup. John has been trying to get his name on the Cup since its inception in 2007 so congratulations John!!

Steve Smith was the winner of the Silver Fleet. Unfortunately due to health reasons Steve could not sail on Saturday so was automatically relegated to the silver fleet. I suspect he would have been pushing hard in the Gold fleet had he been able to sail on Saturday.

Due to the large number of entries this year we went with two qualifying rounds on Saturday followed by Gold and Silver fleets on Sunday. Although this lead to some long days for our coaches and volunteers it all ran very smoothly.

The regatta concluded with dinner and Prize Giving at the Royal Akarana Yacht Club where Malcolm Waller presented the prizes. Malcolm got involved with Sailability Auckland in the early days and was Chairman for over 10 years, retiring from the role in 2006. Malcolm at times single handed kept Sailability Auckland going for which we are very grateful. He was thrilled to see the organisation in such great shape.

The last word goes to Steve Cranch. 'Fantastic racing this weekend in the Sailability Auckland Waller cup regatta, 13 entries, two fleets, 11 races over two days.......awesome. It was a challenging two days of racing and wet weather gear was well tested however the wind played ball and there was some very close and exciting racing with some outstanding performances from some of our newest sailors. A big thanks to all the volunteers and supporters who made it all possible.'

Final Results were:

Silver Fleet:

Sail #	Name	Race 1	Race 2	Total	Place
1612	Steve Smith	1	1	2	1st
1727	Paul Wager	2	2	4	2nd
1701	Marty Pane	3	3	6	3rd
2246	Lawry Bassett	4	4	8	4th

 

Gold Fleet:

Sail #	Name	Race 1	Race 2	Race 3	Total	Place
1727	John toole	1	3	1	5	1st
2246	Tim Dempsey	2	4	3	9	2nd
1728	Max Stacey	5	1	5	11	3rd
1701	Adam Wakeford	6	2	4	12	4th
1612	Jan Apel	4	6	2	12	5th
1702	John Buchanan	3	RAF	7	18	6th
1610	Helena Horswell	7	5	6	18

The next edition of the Waller Cup is scheduled for Easter 2014 in conjunction with the Parafed Auckland opportunity Games.