Troubled KZ3 gets new mast and rig

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 72

Troubled KZ3 gets new mast and rig

NZPA staff correspondent Fremantle New Zealand’s challengers for the world 12metre yachting championship decided to go for broke yesterday and put a new mast and rig into the troubled KZ3. After agonising over the decision overnight, the New Zealanders decided to put the new Australian Zapspar into the boat yesterday in preparation for the fourth race of the series today. The move comes despite KZ3 finally shak-

ing off her problems to come home a solid second in the third heat on Monday, and will give the New Zealanders a chance to start early on an evaluation process planned for after the series.

The syndicate’s chairman, Michael Fay, said yesterday that the decision to replace the patched and repaired British mast had been delayed several hours while the skipper, Graeme Woodroffe, and tacticians took stock of the situation. “We’ve been in a bit of

a quandary because we’ve finally worked out what was wrong with the present mast and how to correct it,” he said. “KZ3 sailed a terrific race yesterday for second and we had to decide whether to leave well alone.” While the final decision was delayed until yesterday, maintenance crews worked all Monday night and much of yesterday preparing the new Zapspar for installation.

According to the designer, Laurie Davidson, the mast will be sup-

ported by a modified rig in the first big advance in this field in nearly 30 years. Getting the gleaming white Australian spar ready for stepping was not without its last-min-ute hitches, but Woodroffe was yesterday looking forward to plain sailing for the last four races of the series. KZ3 has been plagued with problems since her original mast broke a fortnight ago and was replaced with a secondhand spar bought from one of the Italian syndicates.

It wasn’t until Sunday night that the New Zealanders discovered that the check-stay, which runs from one side of the boat to the other via a tensioner high inside the mast, was not working properly. Woodroffe said that the stay was slipping, so that when the tension went on, the mast simply slipped from one side to the other. With the problem solved with stop-gap repairs, KZ3 sailed a heroic race on Monday to chase Australia 111 home after

at one stage holding the lead. While KZ3 was having her masts swapped yesterday, the crew of her sistership KZS were having an easy day after the exertions of three races in four days.

They go into the second half of the series — four races in the next five days — in second place behind Australia 111, while KZ3 jumped to seventh with her latest performance.

Despite three races having been sailed in the

series so far, the final championship is still wide open because each boat drops its worst performance in making up the final tallies.

New Zealand’s KZS, French Kiss and Australia II have all won a race and been bandy in others, while Australia I, True North from Canada, KZ3 and even Italia are still not out of it

Races are sailed back to back today and tomorrow, then again on Saturday and Sunday.