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Feature
story
New approach sparks biggest offshore fleet in
decades
Offshore safety seminar this Friday evening - click for your
invitation!
Royal Akarana Yacht Club has taken offshore sailing to the
people, with a professional quality promotional program, that is already proving
very successful in both the sailing and cruising sectors of the boating
population.
Over 50 New Zealand boats have registered interest
in Sail Noumea 2012, an offshore yachting event consisting of ocean races and
passage cruise rallies starting in Auckland and Queensland and finishing in
Noumea, and topped off by a post-event rally.
The event is spearheaded by three clubs from three
countries: Royal Akarana Yacht Club in Auckland, the Royal Queensland Yacht
Squadron, and Cercle Nautique Caledonien.
“Everything gets done the same way every time, but
this time there was a desire to do something different,” says event chairperson,
Mike Wilson, owner of the offshore veteran Starlight Express (pictured, left).
“We wanted to push the limits and try something new.”
A phone call from the club’s Queensland counterpart
about RAYC’s plans for next year’s Noumea race, sparked the idea of combining a
race departing from two different countries, finishing at one offshore
destination.
To make it happen, RAYC put together a strong and
enthusiastic team including Mike Wilson, marketer Matt Woodley, Technical
Director John Muir, Race Director Fendall Halliburton, and Financial Expert
Craig Wilson.
The clubs collaborated on a very professional and
effective website, which Mike believes because of its presentation has had a
massive difference to the level of interest the event has received, and in New
Zealand, a monthly seminar series, each sponsored by a different organisation,
has helped to firm up interest and keep enthusiasm high.
Four days on the docks at the Auckland International
Boatshow last week, was a great opportunity to talk to cruisers and racers, and
to convert them to the event.
The Australians will sail a course that is 200nm
shorter than the Kiwis, but will start a day later. “This will be like the
Bledisloe Cup of sailing, so to speak,” says Mike.
“We are selling the
New Zealand vs Australia angle.”
It is hoped that 30+ boats will be on the Auckland
startline. The race fleet looks likely to include Starlight Express, Rikki,
Wired, Bullrush, Marshall Law, M1, Sea Harmony, Limit and Lahana (formerly Zana
Konica Minolta).
However, the majority of new interest is from the
cruisers keen to participate in the rally. “There is a lot of interest from
around the country. They see it as a very good event,” says Mike, who wants Sail
Noumea to be a permanent fixture on the calendar, happening every three years,
potentially feeding into other cruising destinations, and a race to Queensland
for the Brisbane to Keppel and Whitsunday Regattas.
www.sailnoumea.com
People
intending to join Sail Noumea 2012, those just considering it, and those simply
with an interest in the South Pacific Islands and offshore sailing are invited
to attend the second seminar of the Sail Noumea 2012 seminar series, at
6pm on Thursday
29 September at Royal Akarana Yacht
Club.
The RFD Category One Requirements Seminar will
feature:
Brett Bakewell–White, leading naval architect fresh from the AC
Regatta in Plymouth, England. Brett will talk about yacht stability, righting
moments and keels. How did Rambler come to lose her bulb and capsize in the
recent Fastnet race? What do yacht inspectors look for at the Category 1 safety
inspection?
John Roberts, RFD - If you do need to abandon
the yacht you need to be able to stay afloat? Find out about life rafts and
personal flotation devices. A life raft will be inflated on site and the
structure and contents
examined.
The bar will be open, and a selection of light
food will be served. Presentations will begin at 7pm.
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KORC
News
PHRF for Coastal entrants
If you are doing the Coastal Classic, please do your
best to get your PHRF application in to Yachting NZ by Friday 14 October. This
gives our office plenty of time to cope with the influx at a busy time of the
year. After 14 October, an additional urgent processing fee of $50 will apply.
Also keep in mind that additional measurements are now required for
sails, so please allow time to get these from your sailmaker or measure them
yourself.
A reminder too that since last year, if you are applying for a
new certificate and your sail inventory includes a code zero sail, it is very
likely it now measures as a headsail and not a spinnaker under IRC definitions.
Its measurements, if it is now the largest headsail, must be declared in the
headsail section. Note though that I and J measurements should be taken from
the forwardmost permanent forestay even if you have a code zero sail normally
tacked to a point forward of this.
IRC
deadlines
If you plan to race in the IRC division at the Coastal
Classic, your application deadline is NOW! The UK office advise that you allow
28 days for your application process. The fees are still calculated from the
weekly currency exchange rate, a considerable saving from previous seasons.
Trailer
yachts in gear for new season
KORC’s Trailer Yacht representative Alan Simpson reports
that the NZTYA recently held its Annual Meeting in Auckland at the Ponsonby
Cruising Club.
Representatives from all over the country attended,
confirming the popularity of trailer boating across New Zealand. Planned
initiatives for the current season include the Central North Island Clubs (from
Taupo to Waikato) planning to work closely together to encourage members to
travel to other clubs to compete in different waters. The next annual meeting
will be held in Christchurch in July 2012. Also this year sees the
first time that marquee events in both islands are being held on the same
weekend. At Labour weekend The Timaru Yacht & Power Boat Club will host
the annual Aviemore Classic on Lake Aviemore, and Lake Taupo Yacht Club will
host the resurrected Taupo 50. NOR are available for both events on YNZ's
website. Both events are open to all trailer yachts.
Coastal
strong in NZ Multihull Yacht Club's hands
Planning is continuing for the 30th anniversary of the
Coastal Classic yacht race, taking place this Friday 21 October, and organised
by the New Zealand Multihull Yacht Club. The club is pleased to announce that
the following companies have been confirmed as sponsors:
- Musto
- Safety at Sea
- Mount Gay
- Duke of Malborough
- Railblaza
- PredictWind
- PIC Insurance
- Southern Pacific Inflatables
- Dirty Dog
- Yamaha
- And Subzero Design, for terrific assistance earlier this
year.
Entries can be made online at www.coastalclassic.co.nz
Three
incidents in shorthanded race
Three incidents in the two-handed race, the B&G
SIMRAD Longhaul, illustrate the need for a high level of safety equipment and
care, even when you are sailing in familiar waters in your home territory.
The fleet of 154 boats was returning from a course
that took in Little and Great Barrier Islands, and Channel Island on 11
September, when gusty winds took them by surprise at about 2am.
The conditions were by no means extreme, but were
described as ‘top end’ of where many boats would be carrying their bigger sails
and spinnakers.
High Voltage was one of the casualties – the boat
was trying to soak below Rangitoto Light, realised that it couldn’t, and so
dropped its kite ready for a cautious gybe. Instead, it hit rocks, causing major
damage to the boat, broken ribs for the bowman, and a broken finger for the
helmsman.
The SSANZ Safety Boat was the first on the scene,
and dropped a man off to assist, and was shortly after joined by both Coastguard
and Police.
While that was going on, the Elliott 7.9, Radioactive,
dropped its mast in the middle of Rangitoto Channel, and the Young 88, War
Machine, also lost its rig. Fellow competitor Surreal, which had finished the
race but heard the VHF correspondence and returned to the racecourse to assist,
stood by with Radioactive (whose navigation lights went down with the rig) until
the safety boat appeared to escort them back to the marina.
A
warning about GPS reliance
From Inspector’s Quarterly, by Michael Churchouse: The
chairman of the working group GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) Dr
Martyn Thomas points out that GPS containing equipment has become so cheap that
we have become blindly reliant on them. He points out that many sailors are not
conversant with alternative methods of navigation, many are not capable of
carrying out coastal navigation and very few can handle celestial navigation.
There have been a number of groundings locally in NZ
and Australia because of sailors’ blind reliance on GPS. The recent Flinders
Islet tragedy where the yacht Pricewaterhouse Coopers using a chart plotter
only, struck the island so solidly that many of the 18 crew members were lucky
enough to jump off on to the rocks, is just one example. Unfortunately two of
the crew did not survive.
Professor Andrew Dempster of Australia’s University
of New South Wales also points out that the low-powered GPS signals are easily
drowned out by other sources, natural ones such as solar flares and man made
ones with poorly controlled signals emanating from television towers, laptops,
MP3 players even mobile satellite services, and increasingly more importantly,
deliberate criminal jamming and spoofing using cheaply obtained jamming units.
Spoofing is where a false GPS signal is created.
Calendar
of key events
NZMYC Coastal Classic Friday 21 October – www.coastalclassic.co.nz
White Island Race Friday 25 November – www.rayc.org.nz
Bay of Islands Sailing Week 23-27 January 2012 –
www.bayofislandssailingweek.org.nz
REALNZ Festival of Sails December 2011 – www.rpnyc.org.nz
BMWAuckland Regatta (incl IRC National
Championships) 23-25 March 2012 - www.bmwaucklandregatta.co.nz Round
New Zealand Two Handed 25 February 2012 – www.ssanz.co.nz
Auckland to Tauranga Yacht Race Easter 2012 – www.yacht.org.nz
Sail Noumea 2 June 2012 – www.rayc.org.nz
Fitzroy Yachts Solo-Tasman Challenge April 2014 –
www.solo-tasman.co.nz
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