YACHTING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10731, 20 February 1897, Page 7

YACHTING NOTES.

Br Ye Ancient Mariner,

". • Dunedin aunual regatta to-day. '. * Giving a flne day the regatta should prove a- huge success. Great praise is due to the committee and their energetic secretary for the time and labour they haVe spent in working uptheaffair. Something over £100 has been col ected, £50 of which has been allotted to the sailing events, and £50 to the rowing All that is now wanted is a bumper attendance and the committee Bhould come out with a .substantial credit balance for nexb yew. •..• Yachtsmen havo.had splendid weather, for once in a way, for painting and blackleading, and everything should be trim for Saturday. ■ Thelma, Trilby, Carina, Matakana. Kipple, Dream, Thistle, Mirage, Psyche, and Apia have all been hauled up in various places and treated to p thorough*cleaniog, and Trilby and Psyche have been putting in very steady spinnaker practice. • y •.' The entries are now closed. They are ttSli^J**? 0i„ ikt- Bomewhat remarkable) and will afford reflective yachtsmen who are not in the know plenty of materiar/or thought In the first class we find Thelma, as usual • but no Carina-no Trilby. In their place stand the names White W,ng ?J Madge, Zephyr, and Mistral.^ Most of these boats havi doublebanked their entries, and are entered for the Cruisers Race; in this race Carina and Trilby are entered. The simplest construction to put on this seems to be thafc Trilby and Carina are -becoming tired of being regularly )T™ ? The !? a ' •? n.d' expecting that Thelma will sail in the first class, havi entered for a race in which there is a-moral certainty that one of them at leaet will cross the line first.

7T7? he ,obher boatg> Whita Wigs, Madge, and Mistral, entered, I suppOae.to prevent th 6 lust-class race falling through: They arenow as it were, "between tne devil and tbe deep sea " °£ th£7° B, B haDd they ha?e't-° the redoubtable Thelma and Zephyr, and a known time allowance; on the other hand lie waiting the equally redoubtable Trilby, Carina, and Matakana, and an unknown time allowance— perhaps more in their favour and perhaps not The two most interesting events of the regatta will be the trial of speed between Thelma and Zephyr, the cracks of their respective harbours, and, what several people'have been waiting for a fair go between Matakana and the boat that was built to beat her, Carina.

-.'Leader will not sail in this regat.f-a as. Tom Baker is at present laid up with injuries received from an accident with his biiycle. I sympathise with Tom, and deplore the absence of the good old boat. He would have been only too willing to measure his strength against Zephyr. •. • The third class/which has been a consistently good race right throughfc the season promises to afford another just as good on Saturday. Dream and Waterwitoh are the favourites, but Gem will w*lk away from all of them in half a gale, and Phantom aud Mirage both proved afc the lasfc Otago regatta that they were not to.be despised. ■. • A fourth class event haa bsen placed on the programme by the Regatta Committee, so as to give owners of the small boats that haven t a show in the third class an opportunity of meeting each other.' This, I am sorry to say, has not proved a success so far as the number of entries is concerned, only threo owners having availed themselves of the chance. There will be no second prize in this race, as the rules stipulate that there must be four starters or, no second .prize.. As the entries stand I look to Tipia to provide the winner. ..*'.*.

i '■ --f ■■hff -north-easteriy freeze prevailed last Saturday, and very few boats leffc their moorings. Trilby, which was, with the exception of Madge, the only yacht that ventured out, beat down to Broad Bay under double-reefed mainsail—a proceeding which is hardly calculated to improve' the set of a new sail. Ou Sunday, although the weather was beautiful, it was nofc too favourable for yachtsmen, who beat down againsfc a moderate nor -eaator, and, comiug back against a strong ebb tide, were confronted with light head winds, which finally died away altogether. It must have been well into the " wee sma' oors ayont the twal'" before some of these belated yachtsmen arrived home.

•. • Meetings of the Yacht Club have not-* exactly beon marked with " perfect peace " of late. Bickerings between members are becoming too frequeut, and' yachtsmen ought to remember that the dighity of the olub is not likely to be enhanced by the airing df thesa petty private disagreements. •.■Professor Scott has just returned from Lyttolton. His yacht, which has been moored at Port Chalmers durin;; his absence, has returned to Duuedin and is lying by the lona. '•■'. The Sydney Mail hss juut -published s. Sailing Number".containing a complete history of yachting in the Australian colonies, and a short summary of New Zealand yachting. The number is mqst-artistically got up, and is profusely illustrated with photographs of the various Australian cracks'. A description is *giy<« of the yachting resorts around Sydney, with details of the various kinds of Rport.to b« gotl' in each place, .and tho rise and fall of the various footers—the'l4-footera, 16-footers 18-footers, &c—is set forth at length. I would aovis'eall yachtsmen togetacopy of this " B*iliug Number" as soon ag possible. There is a whole lesson in yachting in the illustrations alone. '' /

The Imperial Institute intend holding au exhibition illustrating yachting in all its varieties during the 60 years reign of her Majesty Queen Victoria. : The chairman of the committee for managing tha" exhibition is H.lt.H. the Duke of York. Beyond models ot yachts the scope of the exhibition will include pictures of yachts, lines of yachts, aud specimens of trophies aud cups won by yachts.