Worth-While Introspection In Yachting Circles

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29820, 12 May 1962, Page 9

Worth-While Introspection In Yachting Circles

(''LASS rivalry ashore, - rather, than afloat, has been the essence of yachting in the last season. ‘ ‘ ‘■''guests, • ’ one in Christchurch and one in Wellington, will be conducted today into the national Yachting Federation and one of the two truly national classes —the R class.

R-ciass supporters will gather for soul-searching aimed at improved patronage for their high-performance two-man boats.

The federation meeting will concern itself with exploration of widely-carying proposals which may lead to considerable revision of the organisation's constitution, especially sections dealing with representation. The threat of Auckland to walk out of the federation by May 31 last year if its voting power was not increased may have turned out to be a good thing. Auckland gambled that the southern associations would concede to its threat in order to maintain unity; however, the southern associations steadfastly declined to budge, taking the comparatively minor risk that Auckland would not jeopardise its Olympic representation, which depends on affiliation with a national sporting body, and May 31 came and went with Auckland still an affiliate.

The failure of the pistol-at-head move may mean that delegates this week-end will be able to improve the federation’s constitution in a conciliatory spirit.

The R class continues to grow in New Zealand, but its tenure of the leading berth in Canterbury yachting is far from secure. After having pushed the Idles longs and Sanders Cup 14-footers into obscurity in Canterbury, the R class is now at the crossroads and must, through its controlling squadron, produce an imaginative promotional policy if it, too, is not to be superseded. With the R class, the competitor is not another twoman boat, although the 14-footers may be back on the road to revival next season.

A disease which In Auckland is called monotype mania is epidemic in Canterbury and next season should see adult singlehanded boats decisively outnumbering multi-crew boats for the first time.

Most R Class skippers own their own boats and this has fostered a proprietorial attitude that has boomeranged in the shape of crewing problems. The Canterbury R Class Squadron, virtually a skippers’ society although for’ard hands can be members of it, has obsessed itself with boats at the expense of the people who help to sail them; consequently, it must take a proportion of the blame for its for'ard hand problems. The rest of the blame sits squarely on the Canterbury Yachting Association whose promotional activities for the sport are virtually nil

The R class at least has done something. It has supported the Junior Cherub boat for teen-age skippers

and crews to provide “meat” for adult two-man boating in the future; and for the second year in succession a mould has been provided by the squadron for would-be builders. But in personal relations it has much to learn; it takes any criticism as affront. Its attitude is typified by its commodore’s recent airy assertion that although there were more than 30 boats in Canterbury apart from those regularly sailing they “do not exist” because they are not registered. The very fact that so many boats have been allowed to drift into disuse, disrepair or be converted for other purposes is an indictment of the squadron's efforts to hold the class together. Most would be quite suitable for newcomers. This feature is symptomatic of the CanterburyYachting Association’s preoccupation with competitive racing as distinct from recreational sailing. The former supports the sport; but it is only from the latter that supporters of the former will come.

It is vital that the R class should remain strong, although not dominating, particularly while it remains the only two-man class of consequence and numbers with background, experience and tradition in Canterbury. Finn and other monotype skippers should withhold any

chortles of delight at the difficulties of the R class. They remind one of the ant who sat on the hub of a chariot wheel and remarked boastfully: “Look at the dust I raise.” Finn owners are riding on the crest of an international wave not of their own making; when outside impetus slackens or disappears they will themselves have to apply more imagination than they now give the impression of possessing. The stormy petrel of the season has been the OK dinghy. Against powerful opposition it put more boats into the water between-Sep-tember and March than did the Junior Cherubs, with powerful promotion, in their first season.

Now there are nine OK dinghy hulls actually under construction in Christchurch; next season should see up to 20 or more OK dinghies—which the Waimakariri Sailing Club has agreed to sponsor in Canterbury—on the water. The two notable features on the water during the season were the short courses <on most days the winds were light, so perhaps it was just as well), and the contempt for the rulebook shown by some officials. Contestants in the Leander Trophy contest at Wellington had a taste of some long courses in January and they were

up towards where the new breakwater is growing at Lyttelton; in recent times, too many courses have taken the easy way down the harbour and close to the protection of the shore. Open water sailing needs a revival in Canterbury; when boats now go on the harbour from the Lyttelton side the beats are short, the runs and leads preponderous. The Nelsonian blind eye to the rules is not good enough There were too many instances during the season of “not noticing” certain actions afloat. The rules protect every competitor and youthful skippers are being taught at club classes to abide by them. What can they think when they see senior officials waive enforcement because it might be too much trouble to restart a race? Examples of imagination needed to improve the sport were public demonstrations organised by catamaran owners and the innovation of a winter racing programme, which begins tomorrow, by the Pleasant Point Yacht Club.