YACHTING NOTES.

Evening Post, Volume LII, Issue 1175, 15 December 1896, Page 2

YACHTING NOTES.

i ♦- Lord BraSsey, who intends to pay a visit to New Zealand in the Sunbeam early next yearj has been invited by the Port Nicholson Yacht Club to bring his five-rater the Helen, across, so that she may compete in the regatta in Wellington on Anniversary Day. The Helen was built for'Tiis Lordship in Melbourne, from a design drawn by one of the leading yachting experts in Great Britain, and is believed to be one of the fastest boati of her class in the Southern Hemisphere. Her inclusion in the second-class championship race at our regatta next month would undoubtedly lend very great interest to the contest. A new mast i« being made for the Ata- '■ lanta, which lost her "stick" during last Saturday's racing, and her owner expects that it will be stepped and rigged in time to enable her to compete in the final heat of the second-class handicap next Saturday. The Zepyhr, the property of Mr. B. J. Scott, which beat the Waitangi, of Wellington, in the First-class Championship Race at Lyttelton last New Year's Day, will be a competitor, at our regatta on Anniversary Day. It is also probable that the two-and-a-half ratfiV Thelma, built about a year ago by the Baileys, of Auckland, for Messrs. Bannister, and Bloxsome, of Dunedin, amd which has been sailing very well in that port, will be brought up to Wellington for the second-cUta- race on Anniversary Regatta Day. ?,'' The cost of constructing a yacht slip in Wellington is estimated at £350. This amount iholudes the expense of a steam engine and winch. The Port Nicholson Yacht Club hopes to be able to take some aoti6n ill the matter at an early date. The -protest of the owners of the Waitangi in connection with first-class yacht race last Saturday week was considered yesterday evening by the Committee of the Port Nicholson Yacht Club. The owners, it will be recollected, claimed that their boat, after allowing the Maritana 18 minutes, had beaten the Maritana by two minutes. The Committee decided thg^ in the first place the protest was not in order, as it was not accompanied by a deposit, and in the second place it was agreed that the Secretary's timing of the boats was correct. The protest was, therefore, dismissed.