Photo courtesy of SailingShot.com

Kingston is a quaint town at the mouth of the St Lawrence Seaway where it exits Lake Ontario.

This was important because;

• It was a nice place to be and kept the other half's happy; weather was good and water warm despite the fact that only a few months ago it was meter thick ice
• It is really a slow flowing river we sailed on, not a lake, which was critical if one was silly enough to try and squeeze a mark against the current and definitely affected which side of the course was favoured, sometimes.
• Where we sailed it was about 1.5 miles from the shore at Kingston to the opposite island shore, meaning that wherever the wind came from it was sort of an offshore breeze, with the associated variations in pressure and direction. Worst the day it came from the N but still applied to the S wind days.
• There seemed to be no real weight in the breezes, warm air off the lake meant 12 knots felt like 8 at home so even when the regatta report says 12 knots most of the day it felt like the hiking strap was often more of a weight adding feature than a required one.

The net result of this was that sailing in Kingston posed many challenges to the mortals; as I said to one person who asked……train on Pupuke and expect the shifts to be larger and the pressure to be more variable……then add waves and current. Kingston is a tricky place to sail. The general wisdom was that you go left in Kingston. Well, with the exception of the last day when the rule definitely applied it was more like Right paid first beat, left second, left paid first downwind, right second etc etc. Really weird chop with reflection off the sea wall near the bottom of the course, just plain tricky. Question for the day for me was often: is a pressure knock better than a lull lift…….if only I knew the answer. 

The really top guys, Scott, Adonis, Peter Shope in our GM fleet etc seem to have the speed to get there every race but for the rest of us the brain cells were fried by the end of each race.

Given the above, as usual the cream rose to the top and the results in most divisions were that the truly great sailors won, many good sailors did well but others just got confused and the rest of us wondered how the top guys did it with such consistency. 

For team NZ that meant Scott did it again in the Apprentice Masters Radial, and congratulations to him on another well earned world title cube. Matt Blakey showed exceptional consistency to finish second and get a cube in the AM Standards behind current Greek Olympic sailor Adonis Bougiouris. Both Bob Blakey and Michael Shields showed that they had fried far less brain cells than many of the younger members of the team, with Bob 3rd in the GGM Standard and Mike 3rd in the Radial 75+ division. Other notable team performances were Mike Knowsley’s 4th in the Masters Radial and Roger Winton 7th in the GM Radials and Andrew Dellabarca, 11th in a very strong Masters Standard Fleet.

The rest of us enjoyed the regatta, recruited for the 2017 Masters Games in our spare time and generally enjoyed somewhat variable results on the water.

Given the at times trying conditions the regatta was extremely well managed and we are all looking forward to the opportunity to do it all again in Mexico in 2016 with the promise of “guaranteed” fresh sea breezes and real waves….time will tell.

Nick Page

• Standard Results
• Radial Results
• Photos from SailingShot.com

In early July, Ali Nightingale, Megan Thomson and Lachlan Grimwade headed off for the (much warmer) waters of Brisbane to compete in the Queensland Youth Week Regatta in the Laser Radial. The competition was the final of 3 regattas in the Australian qualifying series, drawing the most competitive youth sailors from across Australia making up the 47 boat fleet. Despite challenging and often light conditions, Ali finished up as 6th women and 19th overall, Megan as 13th women making 39th overall while Lachlan finished up 15th overall.
- Lachy Grimwade

2015 Queensland Yout Week - Radial Results

www.qldyouthweek.com

We see Lachy also competed in the 4.7 for the Sail Brisbane. Getting 2nd overall in the 16 boat fleet.
- ed

2015 Sail Brisbane 4.7 Results

Andy Maloney had a solid finish at the Miami round of the ISAF Sailing World Cup to get 4th overall.
Sara Winther finished 9th, even after a frustrating yellow flag while running equal 2nd in the medal race.
Other Laser results were Sam Meech 13th and Mike Bullot 23rd.
And of course 2 gold medals for 470 crew Jo Aleh & Polly Powrie and Alexandra Maloney & Molly Meech in the 49erFX.

• Laser Mens Results
• Laser Radial Womens Results
• Results for all fleets

The results demonstrate close competition among the top NZ Laser sailors as we get further into the Rio Olympic cycle.

Laser (39 boats)
3rd Mike Bullot
4th Sam Meech
6th Andy Maloney
11th Thomas Saunders
17th Andrew McKenzie
29th Cullen Le Roy

Laser Radial (30 boats)
11th Susannah Pyatt
18th Ali Nightingale
29th Julia Francis

All 2014 Sail Melbourne Results

The Masters regatta season got underway at Pupuke on Sunday with the North Harbour Masters. An excellent fleet of 28 turned up for the days racing, with big names from the recent Masters worlds, Scott Leith and Mike Keeton both in attendance. With Windguru predicting maximum gusts of 4 knots from the SW for the day all but 4 sailors elected to compete in the Standard rig. As it turned out we got what was probably the first sea breeze of the summer and while it topped out at about 8 knots, probably averaging about 5 knots, and was pretty shifty all day it did provide a good racing conditions and 4 quality races were completed.

Not surprisingly given the very light conditions Radial sailors pretending they could muscle up and sail a standard rig dominated the competition.  Scott, who’s 1,1,2 record enabled him to sit out the last race as his discard, gave us all a bit of a sailing lesson, clearing out at the start several times but then having to out guess the shifts and light patches to keep the fleet at bay to win overall and 1st Apprentice. Mike managed to get past Scott in one race and was pretty consistent in the others to finish 3rd overall and first GM. Second overall and first Master was the Whangarei lightweight flyer Roger Winton, who had a great day with 4 top results giving him a clear second. Top GGM was Ray Beale.

In the Radials Kevin Welsh dominated the small fleet to win overall from local Georgi Yankov and legend Jim Quinn. The main contest of the day, the Rum spot prizes, were however dominated by true Standard rig sailors so order was returned to the regatta at the end of a great day.

The strong turnout at this regatta bodes well for the season and with the North Islands at Napier, Sir Peter Blake at Torbay and the Nationals at Takapuna over the next few weeks we are all looking forward to some more well attended quality masters racing this summer.

Nick Page

4 cubes for NZ. Fantastic.

Full Results

The Day dawned with thunder, lightening and torrential rain which did not look like the formula for racing for the final day. However after a delay of an hour the skies had cleared and we had an 8 to 10 knot Easterly with quite a bit of chop for the final races. Some fleets had 2 races today while others only managed 1. 

There was great competition, sun, and fun on this glorious Spring day at the Inaugural Auckland Women Laser Regatta at Panmure Lagoon Sailing Club (PLSC). 11 participants from as far as Port Ohope came to take part in this keenly contested regatta which even “old Hughie” smiled on, delivering a stunning day graced with tricky trade winds from the South West / East wafting over the Lagoon at 5 to 11 Knots which caused some havoc at times with its fickle nature. Five challenging races were held back to back with the ladies giving no quarter at the starts or for that matter throughout the days racing as battles continually developed around “the track”.

The penultimate days racing had weather pretty much as forecast. We had an Easterly not quite as strong as expected and a bit patchy at times but on average a good 15 knot breeze with waves, very similar to the last few days.