‘Old salts’ to pass on their experience to aspiring sailors

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

YACHTING

BEGINNERS are set to team up with experienced sailors at the Poverty Bay yachting champs this weekend.

The Gisborne Yacht Club invited some recent learn-to-sail graduates to join more seasoned sailors in two-person yachts to get more “bums on boats”, club spokesman Peter Millar said.

“It is hoped that the thrill of racing will enthuse this crop of graduates to continue sailing at regular club events,” he said.

Club commodore Colin Shanks said the racing would be about 300 metres from Kaiti Beach, so the public could watch from the shore and people were welcome to look at the rigging preparations or ask questions.

Shanks said three fleets — trailer yachts, open dinghies and Optimists — would each have up to six races, weather permitting.

Millar said the trailer yachts field could be bolstered by Adrian and Jill Metz-Mayhead, from Wairoa, in Checkpoint.

The husband-and-wife pairing received a Yachting NZ Services to Sailing Award in Auckland late last year for many years of keeping the Wairoa Yacht Club going.

They will line up against John Clarke in Space Runner and Tony Geard in his Noelex 25.

A boat-performance formula is taken into account for the fleet of different designs for the trailer yachts only, due to the variance in design and speed potential.

The first race in the Gisborne Financial Services Poverty Bay Championships is due to start at 1.30pm tomorrow. The champs continue on Sunday.

Handicaps levelling up the competition during the rest of the season will not apply at the Poverty Bay champs.

Each race has to be finished within an hour.

“This will be a bit of a warm-up event for some of our regulars who will soon travel to compete at national level,” Millar said.

Shanks and his son Ross will contest the Sanders Cup at Taupo this month in their retrofitted Javelin. But they will sail against each other in the Poverty Bay champs.

“It will be interesting to see if old age and cunning will triumph over youth and exuberance,” Millar said.

The junior fleet will likely be sailed in new O’pen BIC skiffs, which will again be a family affair with twins Jake and Lucy Millar seeking bragging rights.

The club intends to run another learn-to-sail class next month.