News

Following their 2nd placing in the North Island 420 Champs in Napier two weeks earlier, Helm Taylor Burn and Crew, Henry Gibbs, won five of six races to take the South Island 420 Championships at the Naval Point Yacht Club, Lyttelton.

Defending champion Milton Bloomfield dominated at the Knight Frank Young 88 South Island Championship sailed on Lyttelton Harbour on 2nd and 3rd of March. Bloomfield, sailing Akaroa yacht Shibbeen (Humphrey Rolleston), won 4 of the 6 races to take the title for the third successive year. Richard Hawkins and his crew aboard Dunedin yacht Meltdown took second place, improving on their third placing in Akaroa last year. Flying Machine (Craig Edwards) was third in the contest - the ninth South Island event for the Young 88 Class.

The 44th edition of the Trofeo SAR Princesa Sofia Mapfre for Olympic classes, the first European event of the ISAF Sailing World Cup, has been chosen by ISAF to test the racing format to be used at the Rio 2016 Olympics. The Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mapfre, to be held in the bay of Palma from 30 March to 6 April with the participation of the top world sailors of Olympic and Paralympic classes, will use a new racing format combining innovation and simplicity and aims at having the fairest event possible following the request from ISAF.

The Boat Show is free admission to the public and is run on a volunteer basis, a gold coin donation is always welcome. Just by turning up members of the public could be in to win $150 worth of resin. The NZMYC owns & runs the Coastal Classic every year and as is run by volunteers, we base ourselves in the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and all the races and cruising events are run from the Club.

The National Keelboat Championship is happening this weekend! Six teams are lined up to take part in this historical and prestige event. Racing starts at 10am on Saturday. If you have the means we recommend heading out to watch this racing!

Ten teams of talented youth sailors from schools around New Zealand are descending on the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron for this weekend’s HARKEN Schools Regatta. This event was established in 2007 by the then RNZYS Youth Committee as a great way to showcase the Lion Foundation Youth Training Programme amongst school age sailors in the wider Auckland region. Also at that time HARKEN New Zealand signed up as naming rights sponsor and has generously continued to support this growing event ever since.

With two regattas of the 2012-2013 ISAF Sailing World Cup completed and two more to follow, the journey to the Rio 2016 Olympic Sailing Competition is underway. As the heroes of London 2012 and the rising starts of Olympic sailing's future explore the new classes on the Olympic agenda and test new partnerships, the Class Associations have been assessing the competition and trialling new racing formats.