Competitors Run Into Gale

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30954, 10 January 1966, Page 1

Competitors Run Into Gale

[Front N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent aboard the motorcruiser Miranda] January 9. Fighting a gale off Kaikoura this afternoon competitors in the 200-mile Wellington-Akaroa yacht race found conditions difficult.

Calypso and Tainui had taken the lead this morning from Caprice and Altair, but tonight’s position was not certain. Takohe reported at dusk 20 miles south of Kaikoura, and could be in front.

This morning the 29ft Charmaine, the second smallest yacht, was in a handy position on handicap.

Later, as the wind switched to the south-west and then the south-east, competitors had to reduce canvas. Tainui, while changing to north canvas, ran before the gale with heavy warp to steady her. A short time earlier several skippers wanted more wind, but soon had more than, they wanted. As darkness fell Altair reported she was under sail, but could not give her exact position. Earlier she was standing out to sea under jib only.

Spree was then four miles off kaikoura. Ahurangi said she was sailing well. She was a little further out to sea than Spree. Pastime, which had been sheltering at Kaikoura for a week, did not start. She sailed from Kaikoura this morning, but returned when the weather was adverse.

The mother ship, Miranda, skippered by Bill Edmundson, has been moving among the fleet and tonight is staying at Kaikoura. A 24-hour listening watch on radio is being maintained by H. C. Dixon, of Wellington, the radio engineer. It is difficult to forecast when the yachts will finish, but it could be late tomorrow. The race is the biggest from

Wellington since 1951, when three yachts and 10 men disappeared without trace on the same course.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force is taking precautions to safeguard the yachts—from Wellington, Picton, and Banks Peninsula—which left Wellington at 2 p.m. yesterday. A Sunderland flying-boat is flying over the fleet once a day and maintaining a check on the boats’ position sent by radio-telephone from the Miranda.

The race, organised by the Royal Port Nicholson (Wellington) Yacht Club, was suspended after the 1951 tragedy.