messing about in boats

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31004, 9 March 1966, Page 11

messing about in boats

Etiquette There was a breach of etiquette by officers of the Canterbury Yachting Association, organisers of the recent Lyttelton Regatta, at the presentation of regatta pennants. While thanks were made to contributors such as the Lyttelton Harbour Board, not a word was said about the Canterbury club which loaned its clubhouse, pick-up boat and officials for the occasion. Comment was made by a few yachtsmen that at least the Commodore of the host club should have been on hand as the host during the prize giving ceremony.

Hard Or Soft The leading “R” class flripper J. Snelgrove started the fashion this season with a new look by sporting an all soft or short battened mainsail on his racing yacht, Naiad. In only a few weeks most of the junior cherubs followed suit and all claimed extra performance. The so called “extra performance” led to a hiding

at the Leander Trophy for Snelgrove after his high platings in the last two years. Similarly Canterbury’s Junior Cherub performed poorly at the New Zealand title at Auckland. Recently Snelgrove has gone back to his old fully battened green mainsail and now he is at least some three or four minutes faster and nearly beat Cooke’s Unique in the Beryl Stacey Trophy at Lyttelton. Shambles In spite of repeated warnings by officials it seems that many competitors in the Estuary pennants series will not bother to enter, read the sailing instructions or even bother

to put the correct numbers on their sails. Many boats on Sunday were eliminated from the results for these breaches. Two of the worst were from the junior P and O.K. classes. While the latter has shown spectacular growth in numbers over the last two seasons, their standard of sailing and administration has gone down. To Timaru The R class which yeara ago used to roam throughout the South Island conquering at will has been more club conscious recently and perhaps to the detriment of the class. However, they are off again this

week-end and this time it J is a full scale invasion to ' Timaru which has not • sighted them for some four J or five years when a South , Island championship event • was sailed there.

This time It is for the • Hany Blanchard Trophy, J which is a three race han- ■ dicap event to find the best • away performance of the J year. With good perform- ■ ances from Timaru skip- • pers B. Lund (17th) and J J. Shanks (18th) at Lean- ■ der Trophy it will give the • local skippers some encour- J agement to have the Christ- ■ church pack pushing them • along. New Cat

First of the new and sue- J cessful B class catamarans • of the United States Bee- J lion type is to be built by J the R class owner B. McL. • Moore. His newly renovat- • ed R, The Hustler, is to be J sold and Moore hopes to be ■ sailing the new craft next • season. Sponsored by an J American yachting maga- ■ zine, the Beelion is 20 feet « long and carries 235 square J feet of sail in a modern ■ sloop rig. •