The 2015 Auckland Masters Championships, held at Tamaki on Saturday 21st March, attracted almost 40 entries with 25 Standards and a good group of Radials. 5 races were completed for both fleets in tricky E to NE breezes between about 5 and 12 knots. Seas were typically lumpy Tamaki sea breeze conditions with the heavy harbour traffic adding to the wind against an outgoing king tide for 4 of the 5 races.

In the Radial there was a very tight contest with current World GM champion Mike Keeton eventually prevailing by one point with a 1,1,1,2,3 scoreline over Richard Blakey, who made the podium in Hyeres in the Masters division, with a 1,1,2,2,3 scoreline. Third was Whangarei visitor Roger Winton who managed to get between Mike and Richard a couple of times and was unlucky not to pull off a win in one race. Shaaron Mckee was the leading Women’s Masters Radial sailor.

In the Standards reigning National Masters champion AM Kris Decke from Whangarei ended up winning convincingly with 4 bullets after starting slowly, having got caught on the wrong side of the beat in the first race. Second was expat Kiwi GM Gavin Dagley, now resident in Melbourne, who managed to show consistent form in all 5 races to convincingly win the GM division from third placed Nick Page (Pupuke), who was fortunate to be able to discard a meltdown in the 4th race. Leading Master was local Tamaki sailor Nick Brewer, back in the Laser after focussing on sailing the Mistral with his kids in recent times. Leading GGM was Bob Blakey, who showed he is still a force to be reckoned with a 2nd in one race in spite of turning 70 in the next few days. It was great to see 5 GGM’s in the Standard fleet, with Bob, Sandy Grigg, Jack Hansen, Dave Almond and Derek Bond all mixing it up during the day.

Nick Page

Results

• Standard
• Radial