A nosedive and a race record..Kiwis bounce out of Con Cup..Young 88's

by . on 10 Apr 2016 Welcome to Sail-World.com's New Zealand e-magazine for April 10, 2016

In this edition of Sail-World.com, we feature a rather lengthy interview with Simon Hull on the past month with TeamVodafoneSailing.

While we have become rather used to professional sailing teams and their attendant professional events, it is a pleasant change to have a team pitching it up to a similar level, but competing alongside the majority of the racing sailors in offshore events.

The team is now racing both a GC32 foiling catamaran and the well known ORMA60 trimaran, which first arrived on the New Zealand racing scene around August 2010.

In those six years, she has taken all but one of the offshore sailing records in New Zealand, and a lot more in the South West Pacific.

There would be even more if Australians allowed multihulls to compete alongside the monohulls in many of their offshore events.

In fact, when you compare the New Zealand racing scene with many others overseas, the old barriers that used to exist between multihull and monohull racing have now largely ceased to exist. And the sport is much better for it.

TeamVodafoneSailing has broken the mould in that respect. While many traditional sailors didn't like racing against multihulls, there is no doubt that their high speeds, race record-breaking exploits have given the general media a storyline into the sport that didn't exist before.

While the focus of the interview was the nosedive of the GC32 while foiling at over 30kts, and the incredible Auckland Tauranga Race - when the ORMA60 hooked onto the coat-tails of a departing storm, and hit over 30kts, while the rest of the fleet rolled their gunnels out in a left over four-metre swell.

The next few months will see an intense sailing campaign by TeamVodafoneSailing - the Auckland Fiji Race, the Groupama around New Caledonia Race in the ORMA60 while the GC32 (mast repair willing) will be sent across the Tasman in a container and the plan is to compete in Hamilton Island and Airlie Beach Race Weeks.

Exciting times!

Two New Zealand sailors have had a couple of good days at the Congressional Cup. Chris Steele and Phil Robertson topped the leaderboard after the Qualifying Round of the premier match racing event at Long Beach YC.

Then today they were bounced out of the regatta by the #6 and #8 finishers in the Round Robin phase of the second event on the World Match Racing Tour.

But at least, they were in good company - six times World Match Racing Champion also bounced out of the Congressional Cup - in last place.

According to the pundits, Williams is the first ever former winner of the Congressional Cup to receive the traditional prize for the last place finisher - a copy of the 1952 classic 'Race your Boat Right' by Arthur Knapp Jnr.

We have all the details of the racing in this edition of Sail-World.com.

This year's Congressional Cup is significant in that it is the only event on the World Match Tour that will not be sailed in multihulls.

The Congressional Cup is the sailing equivalent of the US Masters. Everything is done just right, with real class and by people who believe that traditions and values are important. But at the same time, the event is a lot of fun - with an enormous effort put in by a veritable army of volunteers, who get as much enjoyment out of the event, or maybe more, than the competitors they look after so well.

So good on the Long Beach Yacht Club for holding the line on the traditions of their event - and insisting that this year's regatta should continue to be sailed in their fleet of Catalina 37's. Same for the World Match Racing Tour for bowing to the traditions of a proud and prestigious club.

Like the Auckland sailing scene, the World Match Racing Tour has shown that with a bit of flexibility multihull and monohull can work together - and have a better event for it. For the first time in sailing history this year, we are going to have a major sailing title determined across a mix of multihull and monohull match racing events.

It would have been too easy for both the WMRT and Long Beach YC to have played the brinksmanship games that have typified the America's Cup, and maybe packed up and gone their separate ways. Instead, they have compromised and worked together and created a more interesting world championship.

There was plenty of controversy closer to home this weekend in the Harken Young 88 Nationals, with the winner able to reverse a start line judge's call and have their finishing place re-instated.

Again we have all the details in this edition of Sail-World.com.

Follow all the racing and developments in major and local events on www.sail-world.com, scroll to the bottom of the site, select New Zealand, and get all the latest news and updates from the sailing world.

Good sailing!

Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor

sailworldnzl@gmail.com

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