O'pen BIC - 87 junior sailors take part in Forward Sailing Winter Cup

by Bevan McKavanagh on 10 Jul 2017 What a weekend! Sailors across three fleets from all over New Zealand, Australia and Rarotonga, came together at Manly Sailing Club on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula for the second annual Forward Sailing NZ Winter O’pen BIC Cup this past weekend July 7-9.

A one-design junior regatta sailed in the modern O’pen BIC sailing skiff, the Winter O’pen BIC Cup was conceived by Sir Russell Coutts. Its inaugural event took place in July of 2016, this year’s event more than doubling the number of entries from the previous year.

Thursday’s planned coaching day was cancelled to allow the sailors and families to check out the parade for Team NZ, Friday was straight into sailing. Gold and Silver sailed different versions of the same course with the bronze fleet sailing a separate course under the watchful coaching eye of Erik Stibbe (Previous Australian Olympic Coach).

By the end of the day, four points score races were completed for the Gold and Silver Fleets with a massive seven races completed for the bronze.

Day 2 saw another three races for the Gold and Silver with one of those including a 1hr long marathon race. Bronze clocked up another six races, making for a very busy weekend of 10 races in total for Gold and Silver and 18 for the bronze.

Sunday finished with the uniquely Open BIC non-point scoring 2-up Adventure race.

A mixed bag of breeze was served, mostly from the West with anything from 3-20 knots of experienced over the weekend.

The O’pen BIC regatta format differs from other more traditional classes. The most noted difference is protesting is not allowed. Meaning all altercations are dealt with on the water by on water judges. This is well received by sailors and keeps the sailing on the water and not in the protest room at the end of a day’s sailing.

Other unique aspects of Open BIC events are the 2-up adventure races. These races match the bronze fleet sailors (generally new to racing), with the experienced Gold Fleet sailors. It encourages them to mix with sailors they probably don’t know and for the experienced sailors to share their skills with new comers to the sport.

The weekend's regattas was treated as a warm up for many of the sailors who will be travelling to Italy in two weeks’ time to take part in the 2017 O’pen BIC World Titles being held in Garda Italy.

Thanks for Manly Sailing Club for hosting us once again, we’re looking forward to the summer. For more information about the O’pen BIC class. Check out the Class Association website www.openbic.org.nz



Results as follows:

Gold Fleet (most experienced)
Sean Hebert (Torbay Sailing Club)
Jake Pye (Kerikeri Cruising Club)
Mattias Coutts (Manly Sailing Club)

Silver Fleet (intermediate experience)
Luke Squire (Sailing Wanganui)
Jack White (Marakura Yacht Club)
Caleb Squire (Sailing Wanganui)

Bronze Fleet (new to racing)
Finn Pye (Kerikeri Cruising Club)
Henry Miller (Nelson Yacht Club)
Renee Mullins (Ravensbourne Boating Club)

For complete results click here