Perversely, in the 2012 race it was not phenomenal seas but drifting conditions that slowed final progress into the leg finish at Oban. So far nobody has competed twice in this race, but three veterans of the 2012 event – Chris Skinner and co-skippers Rob Croft and Sally Garrett – are entered for 2019. Sally Garrett, an experienced dinghy and keelboat racer and former commodore of Royal Akarana Yacht Club, says she and Croft are looking forward to a more settled performance this year… Just before the 2012 start they discovered the rudder on their Farr 38 Coppelia was rotten and had a last-minute rush to build and fit a replacement. ‘We were really exhausted when we started and were on the back foot for the remainder of the race.’ They have raced 13,000 miles together since then, including the 2014 Round North Island Race, forging a well-tried onboard partner- ship. A big part of their pre-race training focused on safety. A close friend of Rob Croft died in an offshore man overboard incident and Garrett said that still weighs heavily – inspiring a detailed review of all their own safety and man overboard procedures, particularly in the event that she has to recover her much larger co-skipper. ‘But we are more confident going into this race,’ she says. ‘A highlight will definitely be returning to Stewart Island – so few people ever get to sail there and the people are fabulous. Although it represents the physical halfway mark, mentally it feels much more than halfway. The very exposed west coast is behind you. The east coast passage home is not so isolated.’
Looking at the fleet, in which the two Elliotts are the smallest at 10.5m and a Pogo 40 at 11.8m the biggest, Garrett says it is hard to pick a pre-race favourite. ‘I would not be surprised if we see a different winner on all four legs of the race this time.’ Although the fleet preparing to venture all the way around New Zealand is small, the popularity of shorthanded sailing here continues to grow. ‘I think people like the feeling of being fully engaged in two-handed sailing,’ says Garrett. ‘There is no sitting on the rail doing nothing. You are either navigating, sleeping or driving. Or eating!’ The Shorthanded Association regularly has more than 100 boats competing in its Auckland-based events, which include three distance races (50, 60 and 100 miles) held through the depths of winter. Josh Tucker says these destination races are popular with
the shorthanders, even if it is just a beach party and prizegiving on an island to socialise and let off steam before returning to base. Association president Andrew Mackmurdie says part of the success is in always trying to keep things interesting. ‘Rather than setting long-haul slogs we like to set courses with plenty of corners so there is lots going on. Also, we sometimes reverse the direction of our most popular courses from one year to the next.’ And then, for those with a taste for such things, there are the big events like the Round North Island and Round New Zealand races. Certainly, the select few who undertake those missions are unlikely to complain of boredom… or too little to do. Ivor Wilkins
USA Reflecting on the future…
There is a fair amount of nostalgia these days about the ‘golden age’ of big boat racing, when race weeks were growing every year, the balance between what was spent in time and money was better equal to what was delivered in fun, and teams were not so shy about going offshore in a race lasting more than a few hours. In those days there was plenty of banter about measurements and rating optimisations, but rarely any fighting about which system to use because everyone used the same one… IOR. Demands made on organisers from one-design classes were few because there were few of these classes racing at a level serious enough to make any demands.
Then things changed: new thoughts in design started producing fast, seaworthy-ish boats that were fun to sail regardless of ratings, and in the US there was just enough marketplace to support their sales and organisation into active one-design classes. At some expense boats in these classes would be transported to race weeks and regattas on class schedules where the fashionable format became windward-leeward racing around buoys only; no more wishing for a dry bed, you had one every night. The best sailors combined with industry support to make these one-design classes the stars of the show, and those left to race on handicap started seeing fewer and fewer competitors. Cause
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