Issue date
Dear members
It’s hard to believe we are already one-third of the way through the year. We hit the New Year at pace, coming off the back of the overwhelming success of the Aon 2016 Youth Sailing World Championships at Torbay, and things haven’t slowed down.
The inaugural Oceanbridge NZL Sailing Regatta hosted by the Murrays Bay Sailing Club was a great addition to the sailing calendar. More than 140 Olympic and youth class sailors battled it out across 10 fleets and there was plenty of tight racing (see results here). Next year’s event will be in Wellington, with a plan to rotate the event base annually between Auckland and the capital city.
We’ve made some tremendous progress with reviewing and updating our strategic plan and will share that with members around the country in a couple of months’ time. It’s an important piece of work and outlines where we want to be as a sport over the next four years. We’re also still working through our appointment of a new high performance director.
The number of members who have signed up to the club card continues to grow, which has been very encouraging, and it was great to see the Waikawa Boating Club recently join the scheme. The membership card and smartphone app have been in place since October 2015 and it’s something we will continually evolve. It was introduced as a way to pass on savings from sponsors and partners of Yachting New Zealand to members who had signed up to the scheme.
We’ve seen a number of Kiwis achieve on the world stage, from Conrad Colman in the Vendee Globe to Adam Minoprio in the Extreme Sailing Series. Our top sailors campaigning in the Olympic classes will soon head overseas, with many competing in this month’s World Cup in Hyeres, and this month will also see Torbay play host to the sailing in the World Masters Games. We recently announced our 2017 sailing squads and, while it was terrific to see 11 of the 12 who competed at the Rio Olympics with such distinction named in the 2017 NZL Sailing Team, we’re also very excited about the depth of talent coming through in this country.
The NZL Sailing Team who will contest the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup are in to Bermuda to get their first taste of the AC45s they will race in June. It’s such an exciting concept and the fact four of the team who won the Red Bull Youth America’s Cup in 2013 are now with Emirates Team New Zealand illustrates the value of the event.
Kind regards
David Abercrombie
Yachting New Zealand Chief Executive
