LYTTELTON REGATTA

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31587, 26 January 1968, Page 20

LYTTELTON REGATTA

The third annual Lyttelton Regatta will be held on Lyttelton Harbour on Sunday. A full programme, which, will be free to members of the public, will be in operation from 930 a.m. until about 4.45 p.m.

More than 1000 persons connected with boat and water sports clubs will participate *n the regatta, which has been organised by the Lyttelton Regatta Committee. The Lyttelton Regatta is the only major regatta to be held annually in the Canterbury area and is the largest display of aquatic water sports in the South Island; it is superseded in New Zealand only by the Aniversary Day Regatta in Auckland. Last year, an estimated 5000 persons watched the regatta from various vantage points in Lyttelton, including

the docks and other places on the hills surrounding the inner harbour.

Through the co-operation of the Lyttelton Harbour Board and the Harbourmaster, Captain D. Holden, most of the events will be held in the inner harbour, with the yacht races being held from a starting point just outside the moles. Ample parking space will be available on Casbin Quay and on the sports ground area below the Governor’s Bay Road as well as in other areas near the waterfront; parking on the wharves in the inner harbour is prohibited. Apart from the water events, which include rowing, yachting, power boat races and water ski-ing demonstrations, the Lyttelton Marine Band will be playing at times throughout the day on Gladstone Quay. Commentaries on events in progress will be given over a public address system by Miss L. Perkins (power boats and water ski-ing), who is the secretary of the New Brighton Power Boat Club, Miss A. Elder (yachting) and Mr W. A. Wheldale (rowing).

If she arrives baek from her cruise to Antarctica in time, the H.M.N.Z.S. Endeavour, under Commander D. G. Bamfield, will be guardship for the regatta and she will be anchored at Gladstone Pier. The vessel will be open for public inspection during the regatta. The Royal New Zealand Naval Volunteer Reserve launch, Pardri, and the pilot cutter Wairangi will be acting as pilot craft: the harbour board’s tug Lyttelton II will be moored in the outer harbour on the starting line for the yacht races. All ships in

the harbour will be flying colours. The regatta has been organised by a committee especially set up for the purpose of running the events and is headed by the Mayor of Lyttelton (Mr J. B. Collett). Mr W. A. Wheldale, who is the tunnel superintendent of the Lyttelton Road Tunnel, is the secretary of the committee. Representatives of the Lyttelton Harbour Board, the Road Tunnel Authority, Lyttelton Rotary Club, sailing and power boat clubs and water ski-ing and rowing clubs also sit on the committee.

More than 200 yachts in 18 different classes will compete in the various sailing events in the outer harbour. The sailing will start between the Signal Tower on Gladstone Pier and the tug Lyttelton 11. The first yachts to start at 9.45 a.m. will be the A-class keelers, and they will be followed at three-minute intervals by smaller keelers and centreboard craft, culminating with the seven-foot' P class, Tauranga junior trainer. This programme will be repeated at 1.30 p.m.

One of the spectacular sights will be the fleet of large keelers racing in close quarters, especially off the wind, with their colourful parachute spinnakers. This is the type of yacht competing in the trans-Tasman and Sydney to Hobart races.

Some of these craft have just competed in the Wellington to Akaroa ocean race. Tainui (A29' distinguished herself by finishing second in this race ahead of several potentially faster Wellington yachts. The keelers range in type from the old fashioned 80-year-old gaff rigged cutter. Pastime (A 6 to the new light displacement . sloop. Cabana (A2B), with her high aspect ratio sail plan. New Zealand will be represented in three classes at the Olympic Games in Mexico later this year and two of these, the one-man Finn class and the two-man twenty foot Flying Dutchman class will be well represented. The Finns can be recognised by having two wavy parallel horizontal lines and

its sail number preceded by the letters KZ on its sail, and the Flying Dutchman have FD over KZ and a sail number on its sail.

Another interesting craft rapidly gaining in popularity is the trailer sailer yacht. These boats vary in length from 14 to 20 feet and generally have living accommodation. Advantages they have are the lack of a need for a permanent mooring: indeed most are kept at home. Should the wind be fresh the multi-hulled catamarans should provide exciting sailing. This type of craft is capable of very high speeds given the right conditions. The 12 foot, Junior Cherubs will be out in large numbers. They are sailed by junior yachtsmen and have been adopted for inter-secondary school racing. A large number of schools around Christchurch now participate in a series of races for a championship. The lively little seven foot Tauranga class yachts will be in attendance in large numbers. Over a thousand of these craft have now been

built in New Zealand, and many of our leading yachtsmen learnt the first elements of the sport in these craft. They are sailed with great enthusiasm by boys and girls under 16 and in close quarter racing as on regatta day often create terror in the hearts of keeler skippers.

The rowing programme has been streamlined for this year’s regatta and has been designed to provide a continuous spectacle of fours events; it is hoped to run a race every three minutes over the 750metre course within the inner harbour. With the event being sponsored for the first time this year it is hoped that a greater number of entries will be attracted. The fact that the Canterbury Championships are being held at Kerr’s Reach tomorrow should enable crews from centres outside Christchurch to participate.

Mr W. A. Whelijale, who Is one of the Canterbury Rowing Association’s representatives on the regatta committee, said that I.G.A. had offered $75 in prize money for the rowing events and that the winning crew would receive $5O of this for its club. The rest would go to the crews gaining second and third places.

There will be two rowing sessions during the . day. All crews will be in the water at the start of the rowing events in the morning and each' crew will take its place at the start line when its turn to race comes; at the conclusion of each heat, successful crews will make their way back to the start line for their next heat, other crews will pull to shore. Special conditions covering the composition of crews have been laid down by the organisers. There must not be more than two senior or junior rowers in each four. Mr Wheldale said he hoped there would be at least 10 to 15 • crews taking part in the event, which will be stretched over 10 races. With this expected large number of crews taking part, the launching facilities for small craft in the inner harbour could be severely tested and this may show a need for extensions to be made to the launching facilities at some future date, if full use is to be made of the harbour.

There will be six heats with either two or three crews in each heat, depending on the number of entries, three semi-finals and a final. Crews in the event will probably come from as far afield as Wellington and Riverton. If the conditions prove too choppy for skilful rowing, then the regatta committee reserves the right to postpone the events.

The fastest vehicles in the water at Lyttelton this Sunday will be the power boats; boats capable of speeds up to 50 miles an hour will be taking part in the power boat section of the regatta. No indication as to the size of the field will be obtained until Sunday morning, although it is hoped that with fine conditions, there should be a field of at least 20 boats from various power boat clubs in the area. The boats will race over a course of about half a mile in the inner harbour and if there are sufficient entries, the power boat events will be divided into two sections—boats capable of speeds up to

35 miles an hour and boats capable of speeds in excess of this. Unfortunately, a speed boat regatta which is being held at Lake Rotoiti this week-end will draw most of the hydroplane boats away from Christchurch. Therefore it is expected that only pleasure craft boats will participate in the Lyttelton regatta. Several well-known boats will be participating in the power boats events. Included among these will be G. Henderson’s Aqualark,' which was the over-all winner last year's Lyttelton Harbour 50mile race. Golden Mist, driven by L. Brown, Gay Erin, driven by B. Gracie, Marmaduke driven by T. Pearce and Golden Arrow, which will be driven by K. Stokes. All these boats and drivers are from the New Brighton Power Boat Club and all have featured in the Lyttelton Harbour race as well as other major power boat races.

Apart from the aforementioned boats and drivers, several other well-known, boats are expected to be in tfie field on Sunday. Of particular interest will be the entries from the newlyformed Akaroa Power Boat Club. The club was formed towards the end of last year and already has a membership of about 20 active boat

owners. It is expected that a strong contingent from the club will participate in the regatta. It is expected that boat owners from the Canterbury Water Sports Club will also take part in some of the speed boat events; club members will be at the regatta to tow water ski exponents. A tentative course has been laid out in the inner harbour and it has to be so designed that the whole of each race will be visible from most of the docks in the harbour.

It is hoped to run a full programme of water ski-ing events, but a combination of injuries to key skiers and not knowing what the water conditions will be could mean that the programme will be run very much “off the cuff.” However, this should not be too much of a disadvantage because the programme organisers, Messr A. R. Merrit and H. Turnbull, are past masters at organising events quickly and effectively.

Because of the limited space available in the inner harbour there will be no skijumping—all events being confined to on-the-water displays. But many intricate and daring manoeuvres will be performed, including tandem and slalom ski-ing, trick ski-ing, high speed crossovers, bare-foot ski-ing and high speed spills. Should a little chop develop, and it only has to be very slight, it could rule out the bare-foot ski-ing and possibly the tandem ski-ing. The ski-ing will begin near the oil wharf, past the smallboat harbour and then across the front of the wharves towards Gladstone Pier. There the skiers will turn round in a figure eight to go back the same way. The display will be continuous. G. Sharp and B. Murray, two of the top local men in their fields in New Zealand, are unavailable. Murray was unfortunately injured while practising last week-end. It is intended to have as many skiers from the South Island coaching school at Lake Ellesmere competing as possible. “Some of the best acts have been run off the cuff,” said Mr Merrit. “I once ran a very successful display without seeing any of it simply because I knew what boats I had available and what the skiers’ capabilities were.