No Wind For Finn Trial

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30482, 2 July 1964, Page 16

No Wind For Finn Trial

["The Frets" Special Service)

NAPIER, July 1.

Lade of wind prevented racing in the national Finn class yachting contest and Olympic trials at Napier today, but the yachtsmen and officials are confident of holding at least one more race tomor* row or Friday to complete the series.

If no more races are possible, the name of the former Olympic gold medallist, P. G. Mander, will be submitted to the meeting on Saturday morning of the New Zealand Yachting Federation. Mander won the 23boat qualifying series held last week. That series consisted of six races instead of the proposed seven. In the five days subsequently it has been possible to sail only four heats of the change-boat series. Seven races are scheduled in this series, too. However, the sailing committee can declare a winner on the results of five or six races if it proves impossible to sail the full schedule of heats. Tokyo Decisions

The chairman of the sailing committee (Mr H. G. Wheatley, of Auckland) said that every effort will be made to sail as many races as possible. The Federation on Saturday will consider sending to Tokyo H. 0. L. Pedersen and E. L. Wells, of Auckland (Flying Dutchman crew), a Finn skipper, a reserve yachtsman, a manager, two Flying Dutchman yachts with full gear, rigging, sails and spares, and spares for the Japanese-pro-vided Finn. Nine men have been nominated as manager, but it is likely that the decision will be swayed considerably if no

reserve is sent; Of those nominated, only three—Mander, H. D. Poble (Wellington), and D. St. Clair Brown (Auckland)—have takeh part in the Olympic trials this month and would be suitable man-ager-reserves.

Finance will largely govern the fate of a reserve, and also the fate of the proposed additional Flying Dutchman yacht which would be used as an opponent to Pedersen when he came to tune his for local conditions. Awkward Position “The Press" yachting correspondent says that the federation is likely to find Itself tn an awkward position at the weekend.

All yacht clubs and yachting associations in New Zealand voted on the nine nominees for manager and placed their choices in preferential order. The subject of a managerreserve was actually raised after the voting papers were sent out; all these papers were recalled because the instructions about a preferential vote had not been sent with them; and when th? new voting papers were sent from the federation in Wellington, clubs and associations were instructed specifically that they were to vote for a manager—not a managerreserve. Not Clear Thinking If the federation now decides to Ignore the voting and make an arbitrary choice because they require a manager-reserve (having told voters not to consider this issue) they will, indeed, be in hot water.

Moreover, both Mander and Poole represent two of the four major associations on the federation’s council; and the federation president (Mr G. B. McKenzie, of Otago) has also been nominated for the managership. This is the sort of mess that a group gets Into because it did not think clearly; it has four years to make up its mind for Mexico City.