AQUATICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 216, 12 September 1925, Page 25

AQUATICS.

(By SPEEDWELL.)

With three annual meetings held this week and three more next week, all local clubs will settle down to work for the coming season. The fixtures are •the main bone of contention and each year it is more difficult to satisfy the club'g requirements in this direction. Certainly they have all been arranged quite amicably as the best of feelings prevail between the clubs and by judicious double-banking of cruising and harbour races on the same day the difficulty has been overcome. But the clubs grow. Last Monday quite a large number of young men interested in re-forming the Richmond Cruising Club met and decided to revive the club and go in for actual work this season. Having completed their spacious clubhouse, the Takapuna Club, at Bayewater, intends to hold a more expansive series of races. This all tends to crowd the fixture cards and it would be wise to pause and consider if the situation could not be met by a certain amount of curtailment of the racing programme. If each club deleted one day of racing this season it would ease the position at once. The racing men would not suffer as better prizes could be given all round. The Devonport Club only held two separate fixtures last season and they were both a great success, each claes having full entries. When these are extended to seven or eight races it makes it very hard to arrange the dates and Is inclined to give one club an advantage over another. Even the racing men are getting a bit tired of so many races and will not ioin each club so readily as in the past. This feeling is natural as some crews seldom have time for a good cruise. This

position is met 'by club officials putting on cruising races to alternate with harbour events and the races to one or other of our bays are very popular with the larger classes. Fortunately, the majority of skippers and crew of our numerous classes under 20ft are heart and soul in the racing game and they are quite happy to continue racing every week in one or other of the cluba which cater for them over the harbour courses. These ■ classes deserve every possible encouragement as they form the recruiting ground -for the 'bigger boats and once a lad has really got the tang of salt air in his lungs he will not readily give up the sport of boat sailing for shore sports.. - The growth of these small classes k remarkable when we consider that less than ten years ago the only boats catered for under the 20-footer were the 16ft open boats. This class, once a really strong one in the days of Mistral and Mascotte, flowed signs of dying out and this position prompted the writer to start the 14-foot one-design class. After a rather hard fight to establish it, the class became popular through sheer merit, later greatly assisted by the advent of Lord Jellicoe to its ranks and the gift of the Sanders Memorial Cup. From a small beginning these small boat classes have become more popular each year and now threaten to overshadow the parent class. It is quite a good thing for the sport that there is so much variety to choose from. It gives plenty of scope for all tastes and individuals. There are some who dislike a big crew and are wrapped up in the Star class which is easily handled by two. Others again, prefer the Sydney style of almost unlimited crew and sailarea. These can find all the excitement they want in a big husky 18-foot square bilge craft. The 18-foo"it patiki clasß of the "Royals" is deservedly popular with those who want something a little bigger than a 14-footer, yet retaining the advantage of restricted sail area. The 16-footers come in between and in the writer's opinion will gradually give way to a larger or smaller boat. Of the" 14-foot classes , we have besides the Jellicoe class, the T class with no limit except the boat's ability to carry aail and

certain restrictions as to maximum and minimum number of crew. The 14-foot square bilge or flattie class still secures fair entries while the 12ft. 6in. boats of the Takapuna club are very popular. This makes seven classes and with them all in active operation the future of our glorious, health-giving sport is assured in the Waitemata for many a long day, in spite of the lure of the bigger boats, to say nothing of the power driven portion of our pleasure fleet. We are now nearing the time for the equinox and are sure to have a succession of high, squally, winds. If the equinoctial galea come from the WGst, as they give every indication of doing, we may expect a rather windy season. Certainly the south-west winds suit us for going to and returning from the majority of our week-end rendezvous, but hard westerlies every week get a bit monotonous even to the most hardened crew. Watching the weather for a number of years seems to point to the fact that the weather goes in cycles. We have had two or three years with a preponderance of north and northeasterly winds and it seems logical that we should now have a turn of westerlies. One thing which we all dislike this weather for, is ita tendency to bring up a sudden rain squall which plays havoc with newly-painted craft and necessitates a lot of work being done over again. It will have the merit of giving the boats which are better in a fresh breeze a reasonable chance of getting out ahead which they have not been able to do lately, so proving the old saw, "It's an ill wind that blowr nobody any good." Aβ the football season is about done, renewed interest is being taken in the boats and in every beach and in all the boat sheds you can see signs of the coming season. It gives every promise of being a good one and although we do not hear of many new boats the old ones will t>e battling a hard as ever, some in new hands and all keen on getting the winning gun ac a reward for their-hard work-on the boat at this time of the year. At a meeting on Monday of boating men interested in reviving the Richmond Cruising Club it was decided to do so and. to commence active operatinnf at once. Although the writer has doubts as to the wisdom of starting another club, the keen interest displayed at the meeting by over forty young men certainly warrants the decision to continue. This club was formed 19 years ago, and was in active operation until the last two years of the war. It already has the advantage of a club house on Sloan's Beach, and a certain amount o' cash in hand. . It is only proposed to cater for the centreboard classes, a largo" order, certainly, but if the mistake is not made of trying to hold too many fixtures it will be possible to fit the dates in without much trouble. The club has our best wishes. The remaining annual meeting dates are as follow: Ponsonby Cruising Club. Thursday, September 17; New Zealand Power Boat Association, Wednesday, September 23; Akarana Yacht- Club, Thursday, September 24; Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, Friday, September 25. The Manukaii , Yacht Club will hold their annual ball in the Foresters' Theatre on Thursday, September 24. This club has everything in good order for an early start with its racing and cruising activities and already a number of new members have joined up. A matter which has been mentionedjn these columns several times, the great difference between the average club receipts from • members' subscriptions, and the sum given in prize money, was commented on by Mr. Geo. Trevithick, president of the Devonport Yacht Club, at the annual meeting on Wednesday. Less than £40 was the amount of subscriptions out of a total receipt of £240. The balance, as Mr. Trevithick said, has to be made up by donations from honorary members. This is an argument for a higher rate of subscription, and we think few boat owners will object to giving a little more for the benefit of their club funds. However, there is always two sides to a question, and there is quite a lot of reason in the argument that by making the subscription a nominal one, it brings into the sport a large number of young fellows who would be debarred from becoming members if a high subscription were enforced. Another point is that with the multiplication of clubs the toll for subscriptions and entrance fees mounts up when the boat competes in all the clubs, which, fortunately for our sport, is the rule rather than • the exception with the majority of racing men, in the smaller classes at least. From a careful consideration of the • position, "Speedwell" is forced to the conclusion that the small subscription wins, but it surely need not be less than 5/. Very few of the present day apprentices or office workers get less than 20/ per week. The old days of, 5/ for the first j-ear and annual rises of the same amount are long past. However, these matters wjll gradually come right, and a standard, subscription rate of 5/ outside the parent clubs -seems the popular thing. ■ The Akarana Yacht Club will hold a cabaret social and dance in Rush Munro's' Gafe on Wednesday evening. The monthly sociale of this club have proved to be very popular. : To help, stimulate interest in the 14ft one-design class (better known as the Jellicoe class), Mr. W. A. Wilkinson has purchased the well-known ex-champion Desert- Gold from Mr. Parker, of. Stanley Bay. This boat was the first one to be biiilt from the original plans of the class by C. Bailey, Jr. She won the Sanders Cup for Auckland at Dunedin in .1922, after a keen contest extending over seven racee. Since she was sold by her original owners, Messrs. Patrick and Cloke, she has not done much racing, but the present owner's intention is to break in his young son and a nephew and possibly help to keep his own hand in. Desert Gold, even if considered eligible, will not take part in any trials which may be held for the Sanders Cup challengers, owing to her owner's oflicial connection with these races. In the recent contest between Coila and Lanai the latter showed her superi ority on the wind. Speaking of the matches, an English writer says: "It was impossible to divide the boats downwind on a reach, though probably Lanai travelled faster than previous American 'sixes.' On a fair run, when spinnakers could be carried to real advantage, Coila unquestionably out-ran her opponent. But on the wind, day after day, she was made to look almost a secondrater. With depressing regularity we find the American dropping British boat anything up to 2J minutes on a three or three and α-half mile leg.