messing about in boats

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30940, 22 December 1965, Page 11

messing about in boats

HISTORIC GIFT An historic and interesting oil painting has been presented to the Christchurch club by two well known yachtsmen, A. R. Mac Kay and W. Reed of a Christchurch ship chandlery business. This large oil, by the well known painter, J. Hollobon, depicts the Christchurch dub and a portion of Moncks Bay in the early 1920’5. It is interesting for the club members as it depicts the changes to the club and surrounding district as well as water patterns in the last 30 odd years. REGATTA TIME The Christmas vacation period with its lazy, hot summer days and nights is a way of life in the Southern Hemisphere. And so, too, is the tradition of the regatta at this time of the year where the accent is on relaxed and informal racing with swapping of boats and knowledge, making new friends and obtaining new ideas. One of the best known regattas is the one held annually at Picton under the auspices of the Queen Charlotte Yacht Club. ’ A large contingent of Christchurch yachtsmen are going north this year for the start oh Boxing Day. Also starting on this day but doser to home is one run by the Pigeon Bay Boating Club, perhaps not

as large but certainly just as enjoyable. PROMISING CAT Nautically speaking—do catamarans have dogfights? The answer may be over the period December 29 to January 2 when the New Zealand Catamaran championships are being held on Lyttelton Harbour. Two new contenders for championship honours were launched on Saturday afternoon at Mt. Pleasant. They were Aris-to-Cat, a new Shearwater 111 for D. Evans and B. Scott which was professionally built by Cooke brothers. This is a real lightweight job, beautifully geared and should do well in the Shearwater class. Evans and Scott made a good start on Sunday with a second placing in the Pennants series. The other new one was an 18 foot Bikini built by D. Turner, an ex-Finn skipper who will have R class skipper, B. McL. Moore crewing for him. There is also the possibility that the 1964 New Zealand Open champion, F. G. B. Simpson, may be out to stir the fleet up. P. J. Lawrence would be master of ceremonies in the forward department

HOBSON'S CHOICE

A welcome visitor home for a few weeks is G. Hobson, a well known Finn exponent He has been working in Sydney for the last few months and took his boat Finance with him. He has been doing most of his sailing on Botany Bay with the top New South Welshmen and judging by reports, Hobson has been more than able to hold his own. COMMENT Low tide racing at the Christchurch club is attracting larger fleets and many of the visitors have commented that they would rather sail the low tide course than the high tide one. Latest arrivals in force, this time from the Waimakariri club, were Unique (G. J. and C. J. .Cooke), Decision (D. Harrison and P. Thomas) and Suicide (B. Kitson and M. Meachen). Also from Canterbury came Naiad (J. Snelgrove and M. Dent). It eventually may pay the Christchurch club to do more low tide racing and perhaps have less emphasis on the estuary racing where mudbanks generally do more harm than good.