N.Z. yachts defending title

Press, 15 September 1976, Page 40

N.Z. yachts defending title

By

MAX LAMBERT,

NZPA. staff correspondent

Washington

Magic Bus, New Zealand’s defender of the world quarter-ton yachting title, won this year’s final pre-championship practice race in Corpus Christi Bay, Texas, yesterday.

Fun and Desperado, the other two New Zealand yachts which will compete for the world title, were third and fifth respectively. Twenty-four of the 37 entries from 13 nations took part in the 21-mile race, sailed in a 12-15 knot breeze.

Although the result was good for New Zealand, Magic Bua'a skipper, Murray Ross,

warned the results should not be over-valued. “It was nice to win but these practice races don’t mean anything. They’re no big deal. The championship races will be entirely different,” he said. Yesterday’s course comprised three legs and Magic Bus took the lead from an American yacht, Potent Star, just after rounding the marker buoy at the end of the first leg, a 9| miles beat to windward. The New Zealand craft was never headed after that and crossed the line four minutes ahead of Potent Star with Fun about another five minutes back third. Desperado was a distant fifth.

Magic Bus, which is entered by the Panmure and Akarana yachting clubs of Auckland, won the right to represent Naw ZMland ia

I the championship and defend the title won by 45 South in ; French waters last year, by : winning selection trials in i New Zealand. i Fun, another Auckland ■ boat, and Desperado, an American-owned yacht char- • tered by Aucklander Peter : Newlands, round off th* New i Zealand contingent. Newlands only arrived in : Corpus Christi on Friday and i was having his first sail in i the bay when he took part in the practice race yester- : day. The crew of Magic Bus • took their yacht out into the ■ Gulf of Mexico, where the ! two long distance events of • the five-race searies will be sailed, at the week-end for a check on conditions and I markers. The gulf is cluttered ' with oil and gas rigs and > is heavily worked by shrimp i hMta. '

Ross said navigation among the rigs and shrimpers could be extremely difficult and so the New Zealanders took Magic Bus out for a firsthand look.

They spent two nights at sea and sailed 270 miles north and south of the channel leading into Corpus Christi Bay. Ross said he and his three crewmen will have another brief outing on the bay this afternoon as a final tune-up for the championship, which starts with a 25-mile Olympic course race on Saturday morning (N.Z. time). Ross said sailing conditions so far have been “quite reasonable” with wind most days up to about 15 knots—“what we’d call moderate in New Zealand.”

But he said rough weather was always possible in the area.