messing about in boats

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31533, 22 November 1967, Page 15

messing about in boats

New Class The Pleasant Point Club is sponsoring the Sunburst (or Weekly News) class as a safe trainer for father and son and as a cruiser-racer. This attractive little yacht, which has been making appearances at city clubs recently, is lift Bin long, has a beam of 4ft lOin, and carries 90 sq. ft of sail in - a sloop rig. The administering body is the Whakatere I Boating Club, on behalf of the Weekly News, and already there are three of , these yachts sailing at Plea- c sant Point, with another t four building. Of hard chine t construction with watertight t bulkheads all-round, the ( Sunburst can also carry a f small spinnaker for racing. ( But this is restricted to a t length of 10ft on any of the ; sides. Specifically designed t as a father and son class, , this boat can carry three, . if need be, and will give a , satisfactory performance ( when raced by two young- , sters. Jk I

Pennants The second Estuary Pennants series will be sailed on Sunday, starting at 11.16 am., and it is to be‘hoped that the Inter-Estuary officials will make a better job of running this event than they did the last one. In an effort to help competitors, a cyclostyled sheet of amendments will be issued to all entrants when they complete their entry cards at their home clubs; this will contain most of the required information that competitors will need. It is pleasing to see that the courses have been clarified, but again the onus will be on competitors to recognise whether they are racing in

their own class or, if there 1 are less than three entrants, * in the D class. This will 1 J mean that some may have 1 , to memorise up to five differ- 1 j ent courses. It is also to be hoped that 1 > for this series the officials ’ i will be able to time and flag I i in yachts in their correct J , order of finishing. Only pro- ■ f per running of the races, 1 I according to the I.Y.R.U. 1 r rules, will stop dissatisfac- ’ s tion and protests against the 1 s organising committee. • t Jottings 1 s • The world O.K. class > , yachting championships are > • to be held in Auckland in i » 1970; this will be the first 1 i time an event of this magni- 1

tude has been held in New Zealand. The 1968 series is in Tonsberg, Norway, followed by France in 1969. New Zealand is regarded as one of the major countries racing O.K. dinghies. Auckland is to be allowed to have two representatives in this year’s Tanner Cup P class contest. This is because of the hundreds of P class yachts racing in Auckland. Skippers will have a choice of racing either on the Manukau or the Waitemata, but may sail only in one series. V-Jet had its second successive win in the speed section of the Benmore 60 power boat event last Saturday. Second home was a 13ft Marlborough Marine jet boat, powered by a 285 h.p. Crusader engine, while third was L. Beatty, of Christchurch, in The Hustler. HiJack (J. Gallagher) was fourth. It was a fast race in calm conditions, with HiJack leading for the first 20 miles. Properly tuned and raced, the racing jet boats are proving too much, for the big outboards and other propeller driven craft.