Andrew and Cam Brown win 4th consecutive Sunburst title at Wakatere

by Nigel Price on 10 Feb 2017 Andrew and Cam Brown, sailing #1434 “Vagrant” had their fourth consecutive win in the Sunburst Nationals that were held at the Wakatere Boating Club in Devonport over Waitangi Weekend.

They have continued their good form from previous years, but their four or five immediate rivals are getting closer and closer with each regatta.

This time Andrew won four out of the six races completed with 1 win going to Andy & Liam Richards, sailing #1641 “Plum Crazy” and another to Nick & Flinn Olson sailing #1254 “Catch 22” These two boats were equal on points, but Andy & Liam were placed second on count back. Scott & Jack Beavis sailing #1821 “The Kraken” were in fourth place and Greg & Chloe Salthouse, sailing the superbly refurbished #1513 “Iceberg” were fifth overall.

A broken rudder blade in Race 1 and a subsequent DNC in Race 2 put Lincoln & Ava Fraser sailing #1545 “Starblaze” down in the placings overall, but otherwise they were up there in the top 5 in the remaining races. Wayne & Alexander Avery of Manly SC sailing #1724 “Takia” did very well in their first Sunburst Nationals to get sixth overall.

In the non-spinnaker “Taihoa” fleet there were 12 boats competing. This was won by Michael & Tom Shannon sailing #1643 “Floozie” from Ian Dobson & Tricia Ware sailing #1828 “Solar Flair” and Andrew Stevens in #1799 in third place.
A non-counting Invitation Race was run late in the afternoon on Friday third, and the Trophy for this is a painting of Sunburst #1000 done many years ago by class designer Jack Brooke.

This race was won by Andrew & Cam Brown. The tail end of the fleet were surprised by a visit from a pod of Orca who swam right next to several of the boats, and the ensuing discussions afterwards onshore were very lively.

Three races were completed each day on Saturday and Sunday, but the wind did not cooperate on Monday so the regatta ended up being a 6 race with 5 to count event, instead of the scheduled 8 races. Race officer Dave Westy and his team of course setters did a great job setting out quadrilateral courses in shifty conditions with the wind coming from the southwest direction over the cliffs.

Once again we had good numbers of boats competing at 39 in total, with 27 boats in the spinnaker fleet and another 12 boats in the non-spinnaker fleet. With 78 crew out on the water, we believe this still makes the sunburst the 2 handed class with the largest number of sailors participating, and 15 Yacht Clubs, Sea Scouts or Young Mariners groups were represented from as far south as MacAndrew Bay Boating Club in Dunedin and as far north as Manly SC in the Whangaparoa peninsula.

Many of the crews are parent and child combinations, as you would expect in the Sunburst class, this year 13 crews or 1/3 of the total fleet were in this category. There have been many families sailing in the class over generations, and for example, Chloe Salthouse, a great granddaughter of class designer Jack Brooke, is one of the fourth generation of her family to sail sunbursts. She won the Tony Bouzaid Memorial Trophy for the first Wakatere Club female sailor, either as a skipper or a crew.

At the 50th anniversary of the class in 2014, we had an age range of 71 years amongst the competitors. This year, we have a 73 year age range, with Tom Shannon at 6 years old the youngest and the evergreen Colin Dalziel at 79 years old the oldest competitor. Indeed, Colin, and his skipper Wal Louden, both from the Muritai Yacht Club in Eastbourne, have a combined age of 154 years, and are probably the oldest regularly sailing 2 handed centreboard crew in the country. They came 16th out of 27 boats in the main fleet.

Full results are on the Wakatere Boating Club website : click here

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