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Next month's Symonite OK Dinghy world championships have so far attracted 111 sailors, making it the largest OK event held out of Europe and by far the biggest OK worlds held in New Zealand.
The regatta, to be held at the Wakatere Boating Club from February 7-15, has attracted competitors from Australia, Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, the United States and from around New Zealand.
Well-known sailors litter the entry list, including the likes of Rod Davis and Matthew Mason, five-time champion Nick Craig (Great Britain), two-time winner Roger Blasse (Australia), Thomas Hansson-Mild (Sweden) and 2002 champion Greg Wilcox.
It will be the seventh time the OK Dinghy world championships will be held in this country since the first world event in 1963, but first at the Wakatere Boating Club.
The club have worked hard to adopt the Sailors for the Sea best practices to produce a clean regatta for the 2019 OK worlds. The Sailors for the Sea’s clean regattas programme is designed to assist events and local communities to adopt standards and practices that will mitigate the effects of unsightly and environmentally unsafe refuse.
The programme defines 25 best practices with guidelines on how to run any water based event in a sustainable way. For more information, see sailorsforthesea.org.
Entries are still being taken for the world championships, as well as for the national championships (February 2-3) at Wakatere.
