Issue date
A feature of the recent 3.7 New Zealand championships held in Christchruch was the spread of competitors aged from 15 to 70, and teenagers were second and fourth overall.
It highlighted the wide appeal of the boat, which is an option for sailors who have finished in the junior classes and want to jump in a skiff.
A roughly equal spread in numbers from the North and South Islands were among the 24 entrants who competed at the Charteris Bay Yacht Club over Waitangi weekend.
Day one saw a delayed start and some shifty north-west winds and organisers were lucky to get all three races completed. Day two featured a slowly-building sea breeze, which resulted in some great racing.
Racing two laps of the M course over four back-to-back races was memorable for many. The M course is a moderately long beat to windward but then an extremely wide triangle with excellent tight reaching is folded back on itself. The effect is to give a series of four tight gybe legs instead of only two deep ones with no flat off-sailing. Boat handling a 3.7 in 20 knots gybe to gybe is both a test and a pleasure, whatever the outcome.
Day three saw the wind drop out and only one race was possible. Warm north-westerlies fought with a colder sea breeze and made for a bit of a minefield of shifts, holes and converging breezes.
Regardless of the conditions, the racing was very tight among the leaders with the result coming down to the last day.
Last year’s national champion, French Bay's Hamish Hall-Smith (18 years old) was pipped by local Charteris Bay sailor John Kennett. Third went to Derek Snow (Wakatere), himself an ex-champion who has been in great form this season top of the GP (traveller) series, and Charteris Bay sailor Fergus Frame (16 years old) was fourth. Fergus is new to the class but showed some real skill.
A new concept at this event was the trial of a Radial division where smaller sails were used by the lighter-weight sailors. This was a success and will be developed further.
Charteris Bay has experienced rapid 3.7 growth and now have 12 boats with strong interest to grow this further. The 3.7 class is in a growth phase with plenty of demand and not enough boats, so new moulds are being organised to offer new composite boats for next season.
Results can be found here
More information on the 3.7 can be found here
