Action aplenty for keelers

Press, 7 November 1984, Page 37

Action aplenty for keelers

A boisterous north-east wind and a tight harbour course with plenty of spinnaker work made for some spectacular sailing by the large keeler fleet contesting the Banks Peninsula Cruising Club’s event at the week-end. The wind got the better of some crews. Broaches, spinnker wraps, and unorthodox gybes would have raised the eyebows of the purist; but it is early in the season yet and the excuses of being rusty or under-manned were common ones. The prize for the least dignified performance would be. hard to allocate. Probably the selection would be a toss-up between the yacht that crossed the finish line, hard on the wind, with an otherwise uncontrolled spinnaker streaming aft from the masthead, and the yacht that did not finish at all, but travelled well past the bottom mark and half way to Governors Bay, before anchoring and sending a man aloft to unravel a tightly-wound spinnaker from the forestay. With 38 yachts on the water.

and the first division vachts trying to pick their way through the slower second division entrants that started 10 minutes earlier, matters became congested — and even chaotic — at some of the early marks. In a tight finish of 15 seconds, Bootlegger (K. D. Drayton and B. Hanlon) won the first division from Crusade (A. K. and W. W. Archer). In the five races sailed so far this season, Crusade has amassed an enviable record of consistency with four seconds. Provisional results on handicap were: First division.—Bootlegger, Ihr 57min 31sec, 1; Crusade, 1:57:46, 2; Fugitive (I. J. Page), 2:01:41, 3. Line honours, Southern Fun (I. Franklin). Second division—Cadence (B. T. and J. E. Edwards), 1:55:37, 1; Upmarket (D. Brandt), 1:57:36, 2; Potamos (D. S. Hart), 2:01:14, 3. Line honours, Upmarket. Mulithulls—Astral Plane (N. G. Hattaway), 2:21:12, 1; Javelin (J. Milne), 2:23:52, 2. Line honours. Javelin.