News

With racing now underway New Zealanders are glued to the spectacle of Emirates Team New Zealand’s AC72 competing in San Francisco for the Louis Vuitton Cup, but there’s a group of seven young men who are paying close attention. They are the NZL Sailing Team with ETNZ and in six weeks time it will be their turn to take to the stunning San Francisco Bay for the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup and race the fast, exciting AC45 catamarans on the same race track that their senior counterparts are competing on now.

Day two of the Optimist World Champs has had a mix of highs and lows. The wind ran pretty much to forecast with a shifty and slight Ora breeze of 12 knots lasting for most of the first race of the day, it was a race where mother nature played her part and despite all of the kiwis starting well and rounding the top mark in a good position in each of their respective flights (there are four flights), only Leonard Takahashi-Fry managed a top ten placing. The rest of the team lost ground on their downwind and final upwinds as the shifts became even more variable.

New Zealand’s new blue-water sailing event - the A2B Ocean Race is attracting a range of yachts and crews for its inaugural race which sets sail from Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour on Sunday, 9 February 2014. One of the interesting entries received to date is that of Iemanja, whose crew will feature three generations from one family for the ocean race from Auckland to Bluff.

The Finn European Championship returns to Warnemünde, Germany for this third time in the event's history this weekend as the 2013 Open and Junior Finn European Championship gets under way on Friday 19 July. It has attracted a huge entry from across the world.

With one day to go New Zealand is assured of a gold medal at the 2013 Sail First ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships now drawing to a close in Cyprus with Isaac McHardie (Hamilton Yacht Club/RAYC) and Micah Wilkinson (Ngaroto Sailing Club/RAYC) now unbeatable in the SL16 multihull. Across the other four classes where the 2013 NZL Yachting Trust Youth Team feature, our sailors remain in the top seven places with Markus Somerville and Jack Simpson (Wakatere Boating Club) now in 2nd place and eyeing a podium finish in the 29er skiff. Just one day remains with only one race on the schedule to determine the final placings.

The first day of the regatta dawned dull and overcast with virtually no breeze - but the locals said the wind would come and it did with an Ora wind arriving around 11am and whilst it started off a little shifty by the time racing was underway it was a good 15-18 knots with a few good gusts to watch out for.

In a departure from previous years, the RORC Rating Office launched a competition on 15th July to select the photograph that will grace the front cover of the 2014 edition of the RORC IRC Yearbook, published by Yachting World.

The last two days before the 2013 Optimist World Championships has seen plenty of activity and the town of Garda, Italy has filled with opti sailors, supporters and all their gear - there are certainly some great sites to be seen with teams all loaded up and truly set to travel around Europe. Several teams have been 'in camp' for two months doing a circuit around Europe and the confidence amongst these teams is high.

The Sail First ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships on now in Limassol, Cyprus has passed the mid way mark and all five of the 2013 NZL Yachting Trust Youth Team remain in the top six places in their fleets.