|
|
Events Calendar
|
 |
8.5m Summer Results Round Up
The 8.5's had a very successful Wednesday Night Summer series with 14 boats entered over the course of the Summer, an individual race entry high of 9 boats included a couple of relaunchings and the welcome return of Attitude who put in a fine second half series under her new owner Shane Bellingham. Pussycat, up for the Tauranga race, also entered the series. A good deal of 'turbo-ing' with maxi square top mains and big overlapper jibs was in evidence as the season progressed.
Special mention should go to 'Hooters' and 'Need for Speed' for their excellent results in a difficult up hill Coastal which saw a high proportion of the leaners withdrawing. Also credit to Attitude and her crew for their record breaking (for under 10.6!) Auckland Tauranga race ...first boat in, including against all the canting 50 footers and the brand new 52' leaner Vela Voce. Not so shabby for a GPG semi home build.
The Open 8.5m Nationals, held as part of the BMW regatta, were also very well patronised with 11 boats entered. Probably the largest gathering of multihulls in this size range since the Feltex regatta fleets of the 80's. Dirty Deeds swept all before them on line and handicap. The first day was blown out and the second started calmly enough but the wind strength grew as the day wore on. The Sunday was a champagne sailing day, blue skys, good breeze, building again all day with a couple of windward leewards and a great harbour course round the back of Motuhui and back to a finish off Northern leading.
There were some notable casualties over the course of the regatta -The Green Death Trap (24ft) had a truncated series with a first day exit: slaloming through the on the wind SR26 fleet it's lower rudder gudgeon exploded at 23 knots with a kite up. Ocean Pacific blew every kite she had on the Saturday but turned up on the Sunday after an scramble to make an overnight big blue purchase. Whio also made an overnight recovery after some early hours carbon reinforcement work to rudder boxes and boom ends saw her back at it the next morning. Cubic had an extremely short regatta after an altercation with a reef on the way to the first start. I'm sure there was drama at the front end of the fleet too!
Greer collected a new carbon and polycarbonate custom 8.5 Nationals trophy at the club prize giving and the first to third on line + two spot draws collected 8.5 monogrammed race jackets as prizes -many thanks to the class sponsors for the prizes and trophy the team that put them together.
It was a great regatta and is sure to build from here.
-download results below
-pic: BMW front runners - zoe hawkins
Open 8.5 Nationals Results
|
 |
|
|
|