OKI 24 hour race report

The annual sailing 24 hr endurance race was held at Lake Pupuke over the weekend from Sat 2:00 till Sunday in light 3-5Kn breezes (fortunately) All you have to do is provide a boat and the sponsor (ours was MacKay Boats) provides the sail.

This year we had a team of junior sailors from the starling fleet competing. James Roberts, Sam Schofield, Alex Munro and Hamish Chadderton from Howick SC. They were entered in the under 18 years section and sailing a full rig laser. We had 40 boats in all and 7 in our section. The closest competing teams were Brad Moss and Toma Simhony from Murrays bay with Alex Dyet and Josh Salthouse from Torbay. Another strong team was Sam Mackenzie Kohi, Scottie Barnes Murrays, Molley Meech, and Sam Bullock from Tauranga

The boys had practiced in the weeks before hand sailing 2 up and familiarising themselves with how a laser goes and how to nurse to most speed out of it. We had 3 laser radials for practice but selected Hamish’s boat as the best for the race. We borrowed the full mast section to suit the sail size for the race. It was the first time any of the team had sailed such a powerful boat single handed.

They start le Mans style with the skipper running to the boat at the waters edge. He dives aboard and starts to sail. The object was to see who could do the most laps of the lake in a 24 hour period. The sailors usually did a 2 hour shift then swopped at the floating pontoon. Change overs were done at speed to avoid wasting time and boat speed. There was a maximum of 3 hours for any sailor at a time and this was to prove decisive.

We had a good start with Hamish getting to the first mark in 10^th then the top mark in 4^th. The next 2 hours was Alex then followed James. We had established a range of 13^th to 17^th place. As night fell a glow stick was inserted in a sleeve in the sail and skipper (Sam) had to wear a flashing light attached to their life jacket. The hours after midnight were crucial as one of the other teams did not swop over their crew and laps done beyond 3 hours were deleted from their total.

As conditions changed so did the lap times. The longest was over an hour and the shortest just 17 minutes. Sam was on fire during his night shift and had two very quick laps of 31 and 33 mins when others were still doing over 40min laps. We had moved into 13^th place and had a 12 min lead on our nearest competition. We were also a lap up on them too.

The day was a welcome sight and the sailors were fast enough to keep ahead and were well practiced at clearing weed from the center board and rudder. They finished in 14^th place and were first team under 18 years.

Our starling coaches Max Andrew competed well in the open class and Chris Dawson partnered with Blair Tuke were first.

Other past a present Wakatere sailors were Finn Drummond and Nick Croft 3^rd in the youth class. Chris Steele and Logan had a sail in the legends boat along with Tom Ashsley and other notables such as Ray Davies tactitian for Emirates Team NZ.

It was a great event with tents, caravans and busses in the park for crews to try and sleep in while not sailing. I think our peed in the light scared some of the older competitors who were talking about placing a minimum weight limit on the event for next year.

I am sure all of the boys would tell you they had a great time and encourage you to get together a team for next year and have a go.

Happy sailing

Donn