Move To End Contest Squabbles

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30058, 16 February 1963, Page 9

Move To End Contest Squabbles

A plea to curtail boat measuring in order to diminish time-wasting and tension-producing bickering at toe annual X class contest was made by Mr W. H. Beanland, of Christchurch, ait toe Sanders Cup conference in Dunedin last month. Mr Beanland, who is president of the Canterbury Yachting Association, has attended all but three of the 26 Sanders Cup conferences held since 1933. His idea received a reception more favourable than he had expected and will be considered by a sub-commit-tee which is expected to make a report on the matter.

Sanders Cup contests, in company with toe national championships for Idlealong and Takapuna yachting classes, are notorious for their record of quarrels over boat measuring. Mr Beanland’s contention is that recurring argument is over trivial points. All boats should arrive at toe contest with a certificate signed by toe owner and the home province’s official measurer, to toe effect that the boat and its gear are true to rules. “Personally, I think it would stop this business of people trying to ‘work points’ at contests.” he says. Mr Beanland makes two qualifications to bis suggestion. The first is that any skipper at the contest should have toe right to ask for his own boat to be officially measured; and second, that it should be

mandatory for the winning boat to pass measurement at the conclusion of the contest. The proposal to have boats declared true before leaving their home provinces before participating in a contest seems elementary to a lay mind; yet in centreboard yachting in New Zealand it is radical. “I was surprised at the enthusiasm with which the 'thought was received,” says Mr Beanland.