News

What does one of the world’s top yachties do on her weekends off the water? If you are Olympic gold medallist, Jo Aleh, you ‘relax’ by riding one of New Zealand’s toughest mountain bike races, the Magellan Whaka 100, in Rotorua’s legendary Whakarewarewa Forest at Labour Weekend. “I figure if I am going to do a bike race, I may as well do the hardest bike race... why go easy when you can go hard.” says Aleh, who won gold at the London Olympics in the 470 class with team-mate, Olivia Powrie. “I did the Whaka 100 in 2011 and really enjoyed it, so it was just cool to come back again and give it another go. I beat my last year’s time by nearly an hour, so all good.”

Last week EUROSAF announced the dates of a new series of regattas in Europe, under the name EUROSAF Champions Sailing League. After due consideration, it has been decided that the series should be renamed EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup. The aim of the EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup is to provide the best possible competition for Olympic and Paralympic Classes. The series is based on established regattas within Europe, in order to guarantee the highest level of event and race management.

When New Zealand's top coaches don their penguin suits for the 2012 Halberg Awards, expect one name to be discreetly overlooked - former Olympic windsurfing bronze medallist Aaron McIntosh, even though he coached an athlete to a gold medal in London.

Oman Sail is continuing the implementation of its coach education programme by taking part in a special coaching clinic in Lanzarote designed to radically alter training methods for young Laser sailors in Oman and ultimately empower Omanis to stand out on the international sailing scene.

Legendary Northland sailing coach Derry Godbert and Olympic sailors Blair Tuke and Andrew Murdoch are among the Northlanders in the running for Yachting New Zealand's top award. Yachting NZ announced its 2012 performance, service, emerging talent and cruising award winners this week as well as a short list of finalists for the Young Sailor of the Year and Coach/Official of the Year.

Coach Rod Davis blogs on how the big cat sends a shiver down the spine of even a hardened offshore sailor….. As things stand now, it’s intimidating, standing 40 metres tall and weighing less than 6000 kilos. The power and potential “doomsday scenarios” of the new AC72 can send a shiver down even the most hardened round-the-world sailor’s back. That will diminish with the new cat’s every outing.

Emirates Team New Zealand is ratcheting up its AC72 sailing programme, moving on from primarily conducting reliability and system testing to a focus on racing and speed development. The yacht will go into the shed for 10 days for, amongst other things, modifications that are designed to extract greater performance from the boat.