Auckland Champs, May 2018

The weekend Auckland Champs was a great success with wonderful organisation from Murrays Bay, a most interesting mix of challenging weather conditions and a cheerful bunch of competitors. Tony Gable made the mammoth journey from the Naki and Rick & Helen Spencer trotted up from the Tron. Guest appearances from Mark Tillet, Rob Gill, Iain Aitken; all infrequent attendees but great to see again.

Saturday saw 19 Zephyrophiles front up to MBSC to join in their club champs as guests. Parking turned out to be no problem at all with plenty of capacity for many more. The rebuilt club facilities are impressive and the grassed boat park is expansive. Sadly, the wind wasn’t rising to the occasion and decided to stay away for a while. The shore postponement eventually ended and everyone meandered out to the course for three races in a 5-10 knot NE breeze with a lumpy sea.

Race 1

This was Helgard’s open and closed race with, from what I can remember, a start to finish win after bailing from the start and heading out to sea and scoring a nice little right-hander. Llew showed great form chewing away at Helgard’s heels, with me, Paul, Steve and Andrew M fighting over the leftovers.

510, 608, 8, 47, 602, 216, 77, 14, 519, 606, 182, 501, 21, 171, 316, 508, 528, 211, 120.

Race 2

This was Llew’s horror moment, when leading, had a brain fart and inextricably decided to rewrite the course sequence. When nobody followed he wisely re-joined the fray, albeit a bit further back, leaving me, Helgard and Steve to fight over the abandoned spoils.

8, 510, 602, 608, 47, 21, 14, 216, 508, 528, 182, 606, 316, 171, 501, 120, 211

At this point Rick needs a mention in dispatches. Between races while topping up the ocean, Rick fell into said fluid and the boat followed. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to close mouth and nose. Helen, with a twinkle in her eye suggested he had an impressive excuse for entanglement – but I was too intimidated to enquire further.

Race 3 

Stuffed if I know what happened in this race.

8, 47, 602, 14, 510, 508, 608, 21, 77, 528, 120, 519, 216, 501, 316, 606, 211.

Race 4

Sunday saw other slow start to the day’s sailing awaiting the breeze to settle, which it did and didn’t. It filled in but decided to tease us all with lots of swings, holes, passing lanes throughout the day. Can’t recall much about race 4.

510, 602, 14, 519, 8, 77, 47, 21, 508, 216, 528, 171, 608, 211, 501, 120, 316

Race 5

I had my wielding goggles on for this race and completely missed the pertinent po

ints of this battle, apart from seeing Steve, Mark and Helgard blast off into the distance followed by Tony Paul and Peter.

602, 14, 510, 21, 47, 77, 216, 8, 519, 608, 508, 606, 171, 211, 501, 120, 316

Race 6

This was a bit of a humdinger of a lottery type race with Mark reading the first beat dead right and being first to the mark with Pete D and Dave B close behind. There was a reasonable amount of place shuffling in the various holes up the course. Paul P read the last beat best and won the race. A certain blue boat took a punt and went from last to second on the final leg, such was the strangeness of the day. Andrew M had a blinder and finished third.

47, 8, 216, 510,519, 608, 21, 508, 602, 77, 14, 171, 211, 606, 501,

Contest winner on 11 points was Helgard, with me 2nd on 12 points and Steve 3rd on 14 points.

Tony Gable was a well deserved Handicap prize winner, coming from the Taranaki fleet of one with zero opportunity to race other Zephyrs. Helgard was 2nd and Mark Tillet 3rd. Mark had the standout regatta, with every race an improvement over the last, culminating in leading the last one, only to be rogered by the fickle finger of fate and dealt an 11th place harsh blow.

Final results

510, 8, 602, 47, 14, 608, 21, 216, 77, 519, 508, 606, 171, 528, 501, 211, 182, 316, 120.

Overall a great event.

Brian Peet