messing about in boats

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30287, 13 November 1963, Page 15

messing about in boats

Char+eris Days Fleets sailing from usually-placid Charteris Bay on the last two weekends have had rigorous conditions to contend with. The week-end before last there were 38 starters in

the open fleet in a hard easterly and only 20 completed the course; last Sunday 21 boats left at the gun and six retired after gear broke, capsizes, buffeting or cold before the finish. Anybody who survived did well but one skipper was particularly unfortunate, J. L. Ware who was sailing his Junior Cherub yacht Truna. Ware had last week-end’s race well in hand but went about the incorrect mark and sailed for half a mile before realising his error. The five minutes he lost retracing his steps and making up some of his lost ground cost him the win. Offshore Racing for senior skippers of all classes will be held on Sumner Bay next week by the Christchurch Yacht Club. With the co-opera-tion of the Sumner Boating Club yachtsmen will be able to launch their boats at Scarborough to save needless risk crossing the Estuary bar. The yacht club has arranged for patrol vessels end is insisting that all crews wear lifejackets, however calm the weather, and that each boat must carry an anchor. The Lifeboat Institution and the police have been informed of the event. Racing will be over a testing Olympic course of about

nine miles. The intention is to give crews open sea experience before next year’s Olympic trials. New Zealand Olympic yachting representatives Will be sailing against other crews on the open waiter of Sugami Bay, Tokyo. New Boats Two recently-completed yachts were launched at Lyttelton last Saturday, both of them showing firstclass workmanship. One was the R Class dinghy to be raced by the brothers J. and G. Snelgrove, and the other a wooden 14-footer owned by D. Elder which will be competing in the Canterbury trials for the Sanders Cup contest later this season. The Snelgroves’ boat gives the impression of being one of the lightest Rs ever made and its performance in heavy weather, with so many delicate fittings, will be watched with interest. Its distinctive glowing-green sails surmount a hull whose clinker ply planks make it look quite different from A. W. Shields’s smooth hull—yet the two came from the identical mould, built from G. S. Mander’s lines. Race Of Nerves Mander and his former R class crew A. M. Holland have been retained by Elder to sail with him in the new 14-footer. In spite of unfamiliarity with the boat and the inevitable teething troubles the three men gave an excellent showing on the harbour in very light weather last Saturday. Mander, Shields, W. H. Beere (Javelin), and A. F. Burgess (X class), were close together half an hour ahead of the fleet after two and a half hours of good handling and tense tactics. Finishing times were: Beere’s Javeline (W. A. Beere, for’ard hand), 4:49.43, 1. Elder’s X class (Mander skipper; Elder mainsheet; Holland spinnaker), 4:50.0, 2. Shields’s R class (B. R. Marriott, for’ard hand), 4:50.33, 3. Burgess’s X class (D. Taylor, mainsheet; R. Burgess, spinnaker), 4:51.17, 4.