Hereworth School pupil Zac Loader on the way to winning the Year 7 Boys sailing gold medal at the Aims Games last week, in a borrowed boat.
Hereworth School pupil Zac Loader on the way to winning the Year 7 Boys sailing gold medal at the Aims Games last week, in a borrowed boat.
A Hawke’s Bay schoolboy overcame more than just the vagaries of the wind and sea in winning a gold yachting medal at the Aims Games in Tauranga.
It was the wind on land that was the issue for 12-year-old Hereworth School pupil Zac Loader.
His Optimist-class boat,one of about 7 on a trailer, was blown off on the Napier-Taupō highway and destroyed, as he and dad Brent were headed to Tauranga for registration, the day before the three-day regatta started on August 31.
“It’s dead,” his mum Sarah Loader said. “It can’t be sailed. We will need to find a new one.”
She said Zac and his dad returned to Napier to get a replacement Napier Sailing Club boat, which she says was older than her son.
They headed for Tauranga with dispensation for late registration, but still needing to rig the replacement.
Mission 1 accomplished, it was plain sailing on the water, and, with more than 50 young sailors in the fleet, Zac dominated the Year 7 boys class over three days.
It fulfilled the promise shown at national championships in the summer, winning him selection in a New Zealand Under 15 development squad for the Youth Sail NSW clinic and championships on Lake Macquarie, north of Sydney, on October 1-6.
Uniquely, it’s a sailing family only because of the interest Zac showed when watching the Optimists from the shores of Ahuriri and Westshore as a youngster.
“His father prefers boats with engines on,” his mum said.
She said Zac had started racing a couple of years ago, and is keen to see others take the chance, with school holidays Learn to Sail courses at the Napier Sailing Club next week and in January.
Fellow club member Georgia Barker, of Puketapu School, was third in the Year 7 girls event.
Hawke’s Bay competitors had a range of other successes in the Aims Games, which had 27 sports, including hip-hop dance and over 14,000 participants across the intermediate schools’ age groups.
The Havelock North Intermediate girls' football team celebrate their gold medal win at the Aims Games in Tauranga last week.
The Havelock North Intermediate girls’ football team won its 9-a-side competition, with nine wins and two draws in 11 games.
The games included a penalty shootout semifinal win over Taradale Intermediate and a 2-1 win over Auckland school Baradene College of the Sacred Heart in the final.
Taradale beat Wellington school Raroa Intermediate in the playoff for third and fourth.
Havelock North played locally in the high schools’ Junior A competition and was coached by Cam McKie, a teacher’s aide at Clive School who has a daughter in the successful team.
McKie said the performances by both schools reflected the “good space” football is in within the younger age group and the commitment of the schools.
Among other results available to Hawke’s Bay Today, schools were particularly dominant in canoe slaloms, including Willow Hambleton (Taradale Intermediate) winning the Year 7 girls event, and William Kilpatrick (Lindisfarne College), Alby Redmond (Lindisfarne College), and Cooper Hinde (Hastings Intermediate) filling the first 3 placings in the Year 7 boys event.
In the Year 8 events, Ollie Apatu (Hastings Intermediate) was the champion boy, and Taradale won the schools’ title.
Doug Laing has been a reporter more than 52 years, including more than 40 in Hawke’s Bay. He has covered most aspects of news, including sports.
