'TWIXT WIND AND WATER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 1, Issue 17, 20 October 1939, Page 10

'TWIXT WIND AND WATER

Yachtsmen Plan For Busy Season

IND is cheap. So yachting is Everyman’s way of travelling for pleasure. Knocked by the last war, the sport in New Zealand is just coming back into its own as Europe takes its coat off for the next. In the intervening years wind has been made cheaper than ever for amateur sailors with a taste for speed and the excitement of racing. Out of Petone came the yacht-invention of the century when hundreds of penurious sportsmen welcomed Alf, Harvey’s Idle-Along and persuaded their association to adopt the ‘12ft. 6in. centre-board craft as the model for a class which has brought thrills and spills to everyone able to put up the few pounds necessary for construction. ' The more graceful and sizeable keelers still float most proudly in the boat harbours, but it has taken the Idle-Alongs to renew public interest in a sport only kept in the public eye before their debut by the interest newspapers stewed up under cover of the famous Sanders Cup races, begun and retained in memory of Yachtsman W. E. Sanders, who posthumously received the Victoria Cross for his work in Mystery Ship The Prize, in World War I. But the 14-foot Sanders Cup boats are about ten times more difficult and expensive to build than tke Idle-Alongs. Few of them, therefore, are skippered by owners. Most are raced by crews for wealthier "Admirals of the Hard." Fred Dobbie, of Lyttelton, once owned four boats in that Port’s trials. He built one a year. Each, in its first season, was mediocre, but such is the mystery of boatbuilding, each proved successful as wind and water took the stiffness cut of its planks. The most notable were the Cup winners Avenger and Irene. . Those few yachtsmen who are not at the moment looking forward to what may be one of the finest seasons in their history, can look back to a past written into exciting pages.

A Famous Race Who in New Zealand has not heard of Betty, and who in Wellington will not remember her race with Canterbury’s Avenger in Wellington harbour in January, 1932? They were running down to the finish ahead of a good northerly, Avenger’s only hope of making good her name was to rig a spinnaker over an already heavy load of canvas, hang on to everything, and hit the high spots. It was too much sail for the wind, in a roundbottomed centre-board, and everyone knew it, but Betty had to take the same risk. Up went her spin-naker-a nice bit of work in difficult conditions. Betty tripped over a wave, and tipped heels over head. Interest in the race was intense. The shores and hills round New Zealand’s Naples were dotted with nervous followers, all remembering Betty’s proud history and the prouder catchword: "To win the Cup you must beat Canterbury." Betty has lately been in Invercargill; but there are rumours of a change. The Idle-Along, Rona-Jellicoe (Sanders Cup), and Cornwell Cup yachts have done much in the last twenty years to make sailor-fans out of lubbers, but the big keelers are not nearly as much in the picture as they were thirty years ago, pretty as they are, on water or canvas. Under modern conditions even the 12-14 footers have not given the sport the equivalent of Rugby’s gate. You can’t engage a closed-in ground for a yacht race. Freedom of The Seas So yachtsmen have curled up, happily enough, in their own particular shells, to enjoy the only sport -indeed, almost the only activity of any kindnowadays untrammelled by rules and regulations and other infections money brings into a game. Yachtsmen are as seclusive as mountaineers, and only rise up to face the public when the public’s press picks on their weaker moments to make quarrelsome headlines, Time was when yachtsmen did earn a "gate." In pre-war days the cows for miles around were put out to pasture while cobs and traps jiggled over clay and metal roads to carry John Cocky, his wife, family, and relatives to watch the white sails and blue sea and the fine lines of lovely old yachts cutting through the surface chop. The Railway Department organised excursions and gave yachtsmen 3d, out of every ticket sold. There was big money in the races then, and in those days most could tell a leader from a jib, a ketch from a schooner, or a good bit of sailing from a lucky puff. The system was revived in Canterbury a few years ago with the assistance of the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, Bard of Avon and the Isle of Capri, but otherwise

the nearest thing to profitable public assistance re-¥ ceived by the sport has been the £300 Art Unior™ grant recently received by the Wellington Citizens’ Regatta Committee. This money is to be devoted mainly to Centennial events. Over a busy fortnight at the beginning of January next, craft from all over New Zealand will race in trials and finals for the Dominion’s most coveted trophies, local clubs will offer expensive cups for competition, and, if all goes well, the keelers will come sailing in to finish an exacting Ocean Race from Lyttelton. This same citizens’ committee will probably stay put to place local organisation on a sounder basis. Hitherto individual clubs have been given the job of organising different regattas. Now a central organisation will probably co-ordinate all activities. This bright idea comes from the Port Nicholson Club, which was also mainly responsible for extracting the three hundred notes from Art-Union Allocator the Hon. W. E. Parry. Other centres offer more voluntary help. Auckland, for instance, is well supported from many sources, and, while Wellington does not notice a boat going overseas to race, Auckland helps with the expense. The Affairs of Royalty One of three in the same august category in New Zealand, the Port Nicholson Club weaves a golden crown gnto its pennants, writes Royal in front of its mame, and gives members the chance to fly a blue ensign, in common with the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (Auckland), and the Royal Akarana Yacht Club. Sea stories include the tale of the member who flew his blue pennant past a cruiser in Wellington Harbour and didn’t get the dipped flag Naval tradition entitled him to. He protested. The Navy woke up, and soon half-a-dozen or so blue-blooded keelers dropped moorings in the boat harbour and sailed one after the other out of the narrow entrance and past Clyde Quay, where the Navy had tied up. For each one a bluejacket on duty had to run from the bridge to the stern to jerk down the ensign halliards, then back again, and again, and again, while the procession floated past, rigged out in blue and the ancient tradition. At last they were all out. The commander stopped © swearing and the sprinting sailor wiped a drop of nautical sweat from his brow, .Then they sailed back in, back past the cruiser, Making Ready A Paint is coming off the kauri and teak now. Blowers and sandpaper are hard at work. Boats are inspected, inch by loving inch, from leaden keel to the silky manila of the running gear. Yachtsmen gaze up at tall masts and wonder whether this season, at last, they should change their rig. It’s a fine sport for islanders in the World’s windiest latitudes.