Kiwis at Etchells Worlds

by Rob Kothe on 19 Sep 2005 Wellington sailor, 45 year old Peter Delaney and two teenagers from Worster Bay Club are taking a long term view of their Etchells Class racing.

Delaney has done most of his sailing with Port Nicholson and his crew are local lads.

17 years George Henderson has only been crewing Etchells for two months, while his older brother 19 year old Tim Henderson, sailed as mainsheet hand at the Mooloolaba Worlds.

The two young sailors from Worster Bay Club in Wellington, both coming up through the junior sailing program, in Optimist, P Class

So it’s a giant step up, sailing the 2005 Etchells World Championship on San Francisco Bay. Their results were very much down the fleet, but its very much Mission Accomplished for the three New Zealanders.

Delaney commented on the last day of the regatta. ‘We’ve enjoyed the regatta a lot, certainly been a steep learning curve, but that’s been good. The loaner boat we have is an older boat but its been done up well, its actually a good boat, its been well set up.

As a crew we are 30kg underweight so we always knew that would be hard on the beats. The two boys have plenty of weight to put on, (they weight only 130 kg between them. There is not enough time for them to eat enough hamburgers, this week.

‘We’ve seen just how the top guys set up their boats. Its clear we paid the price, this week for not setting up our rig aggressively enough, But we are very happy, we’ve learnt a lot about boat set up particularly.

‘We are starting to get a handle on the set up and we are looking forward to taking that back to our Wellington fleet.’

Tim Henderson commented ‘The caliber of sailors in the Etchells titles is very high, We are pretty much at the back of the bus. That does not worry us, we are here to learn and it’s a steep learning curve.

‘Everyone has been really helpful and friendly. Its been a great experience and we are looking forward to the 2006 Worlds in Fremantle. I think we will be a fair bit heavier by then.’