See News and Pictures by clicking the links below Results Latest Results click here Pictures First day Learn to Sail click here Opening Weekend Oct 09 click here Finn Flash - March 2010 The report been awhile coming, but it’s given me time to reflect on the two regattas. Firstly, congratulations to the two winners.
Im sure those Finnsters that entered both regattas were pretty tired
after the 8 days racing. We had some long days on the water, but at
least both regattas were completed. To John Simmons and
We need to thank the officials, helpers and the
Waiuku and Maraetai Yacht clubs for hosting us. Both
regattas ran smoothly with little problems because of the “hands on
deck” attitude by their members.
What a pleasure competing against Dan Slatter. The standard in the
fleet has improved because at stages we kept Dan pretty honest up the
beats, but man once the down hill legs arrived woo where did he go.I
know Dan enjoyed the better competition, and the numbers of Finns on
the start line looked impressive. Thanks Dan for sharing your Finn
knowledge at the AGM, or when asked by fellow sailors. Maybe you can
put together a basic Finn tuning guide for the class. Thanks to Chris Wells, Maurice Ducan and Tom Brien for making the trip north. We enjoyed your company and it's great to see the
Congratulations to
It was pleasing to see the number of Waiuku Finns support both
regattas. We have the numbers and don;t mind hitting the road. Thats
healthy for the class. Both
regatta results are on the NZ Finn web site and I’ve heard there are
plenty of photos around as well. Secretary John Duff has the disc.
There are so many stories to tell and rumours to report. That’s a sign
the camaraderie amongst the fleet was first class on and off the water.
We sailed at Waiuku on Sunday where Raymond Hall and the sneaky
slippery sly smiling Dirch Andersen , Jimmy Goodare and I relived both
regattas over 2 bottles of rum. I don’t know about those guys but
a can’t remember getting home and today’s been a long one. I'm sure
more stories will get told as we come together to complete the season. We
still have the Easter weekend regatta and our match racing series to
sail so don’t put the cover on the boat just yet. It was suggested that
we do a two tider on the Easter sailing dates. For those not sure what
the two tider is, you sail on one tide and still debriefing when the
next one arrives. Its been done before. Stay in the club was suggested. The
Jolly boats sound keen to join our winter sailing days. Stoney has
organised the programme over the years so Im sure he will do so again
and we will get it out to you all. The
Manukau Yacht club are running the Manukau shield regatta next month.
We need to front up to this so the shield stays on the WYC wall. Once
again thanks for supporting your class at the regattas. No one said it
would be easy, but the enjoyment of sailing in good fleet numbers out
weighs most excuses not to. C U on the water NZL23 Memorial Race 2 and Clubs Champs Races this weekend. This weekend marks the mid point in our summer season with the last races before Christmas. On Saturday we have the second round of our Memorial Races starting at midday. Sunday will be another round of the Club Champs, starting at 12.30pm. Christmas BBQ After sailing on Sunday we will hold a Christmas BBQ. A great way to wind up the first part of the season with sailing friends. Details will be worked out at Sailing on Saturday. Please touch base with Peter Hull or Kevin Stone at the end of sailing Saturday for details. Junior Learn to Sail Outstanding sailing at last Sunday's sailing saw the "Craig Hamilton" trophy awarded to Aaron Lamont. Aaron showed excellent skills being the only sailor to be able to easily sail around their course several times. Racing News Harbour Race Weather for the Harbour race was a variable breeze making sailing challenging at times. The course took the senior fleet through the needles to a mark off Waipipi and then down towards Glenbrook. At one stage the breeze at the club died right away while the fleet was still out of sight, a bit of a worry considering the tide had also turned. The breeze duly kicked in with all the fleet getting home with plenty of tide to spare. The "Mark Foy" start made for a bit of fun, with the stronger sailors having to wait on the beach while others raced away. Everyone finished reasonably closely showing Handicapper Kevin McGee did a pretty good job. Despite is long anxious wait on the beach, Dirk Anderson managed to sail through the fleet to take line honours with Elliot Hurst winning the Lasers and Morgan Sharp taking out the Optimists. The very light patch was a little too challenging for some of our Learn to Sail fleet with most having to be assisted against the out going tide. Champs Finns Family commitments meant Dirk Anderson had to miss the days racing therefore missing out on the valuable points to keep him in the lead of the series in the Finn fleet. Alan Dawson now holds a slim lead over Roger Hall, with still 6 races left and the worst 4 to drop, Dirk is certainly not out of the running. It was impressive to see David Hoogenboom turn up and take line honours in the first race, a great effort considering he has had little time in his Finn for several months. Not having raced a dinghy for over 25 years and having sailed a Finn for the first time the day before, Steve Sharp showed he still has a few skills, finishing respectively within site of a very competitive fleet. C Div The feature of the day in the C Div fleet was the 5 Lasers that took the race course. It is great to see three of our "Adult Learn to Sail" sailors from over the last 2 years out there mixing it up. One of this year's "Adult Learn to Sail" sailors, Katherine Potter, has already been out and purchased a Laser. Katherine picked up the basics incredibly quickly so it will not be long before she is out competing with the the other Lasers. Finn Flash 30/11/09 The very unique situation of the tide times and heights allowing sailing every weekend is now over and we are back to the more normal sailing every second weekend. Having sailing every weekend has had both its good and bad points. On the positive it has been tremendous being able to get our Learn to Sail students on the water so regularly, as a result we have seen some very quick development. On the down side with lack of attention and great growing conditions your garden may well have turned into a Jungle, mine certainly had. Racing has also been good, looking at the results sheet things are pretty close, amongst the Finn's especially. Sailing this Saturday should be great fun, it is our annual Harbour Race. This race takes us down the estuary towards the main harbour and back, we should easily get as far as Glenbrook. The start is a "Mark Foy", that means the slower boats will start first with the faster ones having to stay on the beach giving plenty of time for the others to get going. The aim of the handicapper is to get everyone to finish together as closely as possible. It is a long race with a big tide so we will try to get the race started as close to schedule as possible at 12.30pm. Junior Development The Club's primary sponsor The Village Bar and Kitchen has totally reconditioned one of the club Optimists, complete with flash new paint job, new spars and sail. It looks fantastic. The Junior coaches decided to allocate it to the sailor that was showing the most promise and was extremely keen. Not being able to decide between Sam Yelchich and Cameron Fleming, a coin was tossed. Sam Yelchich was the winner, he is the lucky development sailor that will get to sail the The Village Bar and Kitchen boat this season. Junior Learn to Sail Very Strong This year's Junior Learn to Sail is proving particularly strong in numbers and talent, thanks in part to some pretty good weather, regular sailing, supportive parents, but particularly, sailors keen and wanting to learn. Check out photos here Learn to Sail photos Another feature of Learn to Sail this year has been the assistance to Justin and Geoff from other club members with Shaaron McKee, Steve Sharp, Elliot Hurst and Ken Letcher all taking classes at some stage during the season so far. Congratulations to Max Cosey for recently completing his Yachting New Zealand Club Instructor course. Max has offered great support over the last few seasons as a parent helper and rescue boat driver, now he will also putting his training to helping develop our new sailors assisting Justin Hurst. Adult Learn to Sail Blessed with very good sailing conditions it was amazing to see how quickly our Adult Learn to Sail students progressed. Special congratulations to Katherine Potter, Lara-May Thorne and Claire Horncastle, these ladies all completed solo sailing in a Laser yacht on only their second session of instruction. Racing Finns Half way through the Club Championship and Points Dirch Andersen is currently leading with four other sailors closely bunched and not too far behind. Dirch is going to need to stay on his game to hold his lead. Roger Hall won the Finn Auckland Champs recently held at the Pt Chev Yacht Club, with Raymond Hall second over Alan Dawson on count-back. Needing a count-back shows how close the racing was. See Alan's report at Sail-world . Lasers and C's Nothing is too clear cut in the Laser's or C Division yet with plenty of sailing to come. Opening Weekend 2009 Opening Weekend Pictures here Saturday saw a variable 10knot westerly breeze set up some good racing across all fleets. Justin Hurst dominated in the Finns, winning 3 of 3 races. Tracy and Emma Letcher's mother daughter tussle from last year kicked off immediately in their Laser Radials. They may not be able to keep up with Elliot Hurst or Shaaron McKee yet, but Tracy and Emma had very close racing finishing within only a couple of boat lengths in each race, with the lead having changed a number of times throughout the race. Optimist sailor Cameron Flemming competed in one of his first races, showing some good skills having come from last years Learn to Sail fleet. A blustery wet weather on Sunday kept a lot of sailors off the water. The stiff breeze and triangle course meant there were some great rides on the down wind legs, plenty of work upwind and a few swims. Certainly Geoff, Justin and Butch all checked out the bottom of their boats during the race, possible Gerrit as well? Although positions regularly changed in close racing on all legs overall the day was dominated by Roger Hall, Alan Dawson and Ray Hall. For results of the weekend click here Season Starts October 3 ! The Waiuku Yacht Club's Summer Season is a little over 4 weeks away. The committee is still to finalise the complete Summer Calendar but I can tell you that the first race will be on October 3 at 10am. For the draft first couple of weeks see http://www.wyc.org.nz/events.html . The full confirmed program will be available next Thursday. Seniors The club's ever growing Finn Fleet, there are now 19 active Finn skippers in the club, will be one of the features of racing this season. Things will really start heating up after Christmas as the Finn Veterans are early this year, February, the regatta will act as a warm up for this seasons Finn Nationals to be held at Maraetai. With two new skippers at the end of last year joining the Laser fleet plus a couple more people interested we could see up to 8 lasers on the water at any time, combined with the Zephyrs there could be quite a good size racing fleet. Juniors Junior racing and development kicks off straight away from October 3. We are going to take a slightly different direction this season and not have quite so much racing but include more development games to help improve sailing skills and having more fun. Last season's Learn To Sail sailors should come along on our first Learn to Sail day on October 31 so we can work out who will be best to move up into Learn to Race/ development and who might be better staying another season in the Learn to Sail program to gain a little more confidence. Junior Pictures Very few people have viewed some of the great pictures of the Juniors last day fun day. Have a look here http://picasaweb.google.com/waiuku.yachtclub/JuniorSailingApril09?feat=directlink# . Learn to Sail Learn to Sail for children is due to get under way on Saturday October 31, we are extremely lucky to have Justin Hurst again running this program. This is Justin's 10th season. We are still to finalise a time for Learn to Sail for adults, the start is most likely late November. Winter Sailing Winter sailing continues on Sunday, start time 11am To find out how things have been going Check out http://www.wyc.org.nz/news.html for the last couple of "Finn Flash", the update newsletter Dawsy puts together after each weekend of Finn racing. AGM Our AGM this year selected the following Committee Members Patron - Olive Watson Commodore - Geoff Letcher Vice Commodore - Brian Saunderson Secretary - John Simmons Treasurer - Justin Hurst Handicapper - Kevin McGee Starter - Kevin Laing Rear Commodore - Kevin Stone Club Captain - Alan Dawson Committee - Shaaron McKee, Paul Kane, Jim Goodare, Peter Hull, John Duff, Annual Subs Our subs have not risen since 2002, with increasing costs and the likely hood of losing income as a result of Community Education being wound up the AGM voted to increase Subs. The Subs for 2009/2010 Season are; Senior $125 Family $95 Junior $35 Associate $20 Learn to Sail $60 Race Entry Fee As mentioned above we are expecting quite a big loss of contribution from Community Education. As such it was decided at the AGM that like many clubs we would introduce a Race Entry Fee. To keep it simple the fee is $5 for a weekends racing, no matter whether you sail one or both days. For families there is a maximum fee of $10. We have come to be quite reliant on the Community Education contribution for normal day to day running of the club, rescue boat maintenance, fuel, building maintenance etc. Obviously costs have been climbing since 2002 some more than others. Insurance for example has increased as we have moved to ensure our club house is insured for replacement. Finn Flash 5 October Hi Finnsters. I
missed Saturdays sailing but heard through the grape vine that Justin
Hurst ruled the waves with 3 wins. We didn’t have the best weather for
our opening weekend but at least we had wind. Stoney or Justin will
give us a Finn flash up date for Saturday I heard.
Sundays
sailing saw us ready to sail with our wet weather gear on before the 10
Finns were rigged. The rain was pissing down and the Northerly was
blowing a steady 12<>20 knots, so just rigging the boats was a
mission. Stoney,
Peter Hull and Tane Mahuta set the course with a triangle thrown in for
some speed reaching. Peter H gave up his sailing to man the Mac rescue
boat with Tane as his adviser. It was insuring for all that did sail to
know the rescue boat was on hand. Thanks Peter. Jim
“lainge the starter” Goodare had the day of f as well and maned the
starting tower for extra safety. Jim hurt is arm while at the gym. He’s
building up his top half strength so he can handle his new C Tech mast
and Doyle sail. Look out at the
On
the water the racing was fast and close with no misshapes. Well done on
the etiquette boys, excellent. Half way up the first beat the lead was
changing amongst us all, then Ray H picked a good right hander and made
the winning break on the fleet. Rodger, Duffy and I chased him hard but
could not quite catch him. Rodger 2nd, me 3rd
.The three of us finished in one second intervals. Man that’s close racing. Race
2 and 3 were just as close. NZL23 felt fast up wind in the building
breeze and I managed to hold my own on the reaches to take the next 2
guns. It was hard an enjoyable sailing, but well worth it. When you
looked around and saw how magnificent the fleet of 10 boats looked it
made me proud to be amongst it. Not too many other clubs would have had
the close and enjoyable racing and camaraderie we shared on Sunday. Dirch
sailed with is C Tech mast for the first time in a descent breeze. Even
though the mast it a lot stiffer side ways to his old carbon he found
the boat easier to handle. I would say his new mast must be quicker,
and the aft bend controlling and regulating the leach tension a lot
better. Also Gerrit has fitted his designed adjustable deck ring to
Dirchs boat, so a combination of all the factors is producing better
speed which makes the boat faster and easier to hold up. Justin
and Butch spend some time in the drink. I don’t know what they were
looking for, but you have to go further down the harbour to get
scallops’. There’s a rumour that a new Doyle sail was spotted in the
back of Justins car. Interesting. Next
weekend we have the first of the Finn clinics orgainised by John Duff.
This one run by Rodger Hall NZL 242. It is great that Rodger is sharing
his knowledge with the class.Lets all make a Finn committment to be
there. Plucking at Rodgers knowledge has helped nzl23 go alot faster,so
here is your chance. Gerrit is also weighing boats in the morning, and after the clinic there is some on the water training as well.
Don’t miss this opportunity to help your self and the class prosper.
A
big thanks to Marty Ramsey, an ex Finn sailor from our club, for making
the new trophy stand. What a sight seeing all the Finn trophies on
display won by club members. Rodger you must fell proud of your achievements last season. We are. Sunday
results. NZL23 Alan D 3-1-1. NZL232 Ray H 1-3-3. NZL242
Rodger H 2-2-2. The rest of the results will be posted on the club web
sight. C U Sat
Finn FLASH 24/8/09 Hi Finnsters. As predicted we had a good turn out on Sunday. 8 Finns turn up for some excellent sailing in 12<>15 knots. The
wind was from the east and reasonably steady for that direction. Stoney
set the course and we decided on a down wind start starboard rounding.
On the first leg all boats converged on the bottom mark together. The
boats rounded with little confusion but Stoney and butch did touch. Up
the 1st beat the lead was hotly contested with Rodger, Ray and Dirch setting the pace. The flat run was even and the
bottom rounding hotly contested again as there was little distance between the 8 boats. Up the 2nd
beat I cleared my air and nzl23 felt great with the C Tec and Doyle
sail combo. Rodger and I had a small advantage at the top mark and kept
the fleet at bay till the gun. Me 1st. Rodger 2nd. Ray 3rd Justin 4th.
Dirch used Stones C Tec and North sail and showed some real speed for
most of the race. Justin was right amongst the action as well and
proved it in the second race. Stoney and Butch fell of the pace after
having a port starboard collision up wind resulting in some boat
damage. Not too many Vanguards left in NZ you guys. It was good to see
the two boats still afloat and finishing. Thanks
also to Rodger for the boat rescue for Stu after he had capsized and
lost his rudder. No damage to Stu’s new boat just needs a rudder pin. The 2nd
race was just as close. At the start I heard this all mighty
waaaccckkkk and new some one had copped the boom big time. Butch limped
to shore and Stu reported afterwards that indeed that was the case.
Maybe stiches. Hope he’s ok. This
race saw Justin at his best and held of Stoney. me and Ray to take the
gun. Afterwards Justin was heard saying that sailing clean can be real
fast. The worm has turned. Well done Justin. Also on the pace was Peter
Hull and in those conditions he showed some real improvement. Back
on shore everyone was pleased to have had some excellent sailing
conditions. After a few drinks and a pie (Thanks Margret) the debrief
got under way. Lots to talk about but all positive. Justin had a couple
of sponsored Prizes for the day. A Jacket and beanie. We gave the
jacket to Stoney as he will need most of the material to fix his boat
and the beanie is for Butch to help repair the head – boom clash he had. Thanks for the good turnout guys Till next time. Finn Flash 9August It
was great to see Robbie and Kate Moyes at the WYC. Robbie was
delivering his Finn to its new owner Stu Shadgett. Robbie is very busy
with the Minstrel class and keelers, but is keen to get back into a
Finn when time permits. Well done Stu, back out on the water again with
the boys. What
a good turn out of boats for the winter race day, and thanks Stoney for
running the club. Good to see the skippers’ hands on at clean up time.
The clean up is always thirsty work so the last beer can taste as good
as the first one when we all help with the clean up duties. 3 races where sailed in shifty easterlies with Rodger H taking 2 guns and Butch the other. Dirch
has contacted C Tec about a mast and is investigating the bends that
will suit him. He is fast enough all ready without turning
professional.. We all better look out as he is my pick to be the
slippery dog this year. Some
good and bad news. The good news was that my Daughter Katie and her
Partner Jason got engaged on Sun. The bad news was I was told I
couldn’t sail as they were coming down for the day. Two daughters to go
and that won’t happen again. Good to see the boys having a good sail, and those on the committee I will see you Wed at the meeting. April 2009 Update Junior Sailing Web Album Pictures For great sailing news both New Zealand and International check out www.sail-world.com/nz/ . |
