Yachting 'invasion’

Press, 20 August 1979, Page 24

Yachting 'invasion’

NZPA London New Zealand’s top small boat yachtsmen will cross the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn today for a full-scale dress rehearsal for next year’s Olympic yachting events. After several weeks of racing in regattas around Europe one of the biggest New Zealand yachting teams ever assembled will spend nine days racing in the historic Estonian port which will host the yachting events of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Of the six Olympic classes,

only the Star class is missing from the New Zealand line-up. But tire rest are composed of small boat sailors who won the privilege of going to Tallinn in a speical New Zealand championship regatta sailed off Takapuna last Easter. They are: Jock Bilger and Murray Ross (Flying Dutchman); Mark Paterson and Dave Mackay (470 class); Rex Sellars and Gerald Sly (Tornado); Tom Dodson (Finn) and Murray Thom, Alan Robinson and Peter Jordan (Soling). The New Zealanders have had

mixed results in their assorted classes over the last few weeks. But the assistant team manager iMr Harty Kingham) said winning was not the primary concern of the trip to Tallinn. “Winning will be our all-out alm next year,” he Said. “This year we really want to learn as much as we can about the conditions we will be facing in the Olympics. “Good results would be nice but thev are not really of that much importance. This is really an exploratory trip. If necessary we might even have someone take an experimental course just to see what happens.” No details were available of just who will be at the Tallinn .Cgatia, but the Soviet authorities are thought to have invited all the world’s leading yachting nations for the Olympic warmup- .