Consistent safe sailing in the shifty and patchy SW breeze saw Mahia win his 3rd regatta in a row with James just managing to sneak into 2nd overall.

Jack Simpson sailing in his first Starling regatta finished 5th (with a great 2nd in the first race), just in front of Matthew who was 1st to the top mark twice but unlike Mahia got caught out on the wrong side of a couple of big shifts. Kelsey finished next in 7th.

The starling Traveller Series is like a Marathon of sailing. There are 9 regattas of
which your best 6 count. They are held from Tauranga to Hibiscus Coast, Manly over a
6 month duration and  totalling 52 races. There were 120 sailors competing, compared
with 96 in the nationals. The winner was James Roberts on 173.5pnt ahead of Mahia
Pepper 173.0 points, third was Romano Chung then Matthew Kempkers 4th. An excellent
result for Wakatere wtih 3 of the top 4 spots. James finished strongly with a second
place which eventually secured enough points for the win. 

James completed all 8 regattas and had a drop of 33 points. He improved in regatta
placings and points attained right through the course of the season. With no regatta
wins and only 3 race wins in the year he was consistant enough to take the trophy
for the series. 

The Super City Regatta at Torbay Apr 8-10. has a 1.5x points value and Mahia had a
stunning run of success. 2.1,1,2,1,1,2,1. This is his second regatta in a row won in
convincing style. All aspiring sailors should look at Mahia as an example of how far
you can progress in a year. He was chased hard in several races by Oscar Rorvk who
came second and Yuri Cowan did well sailing starling for the first time.

Mike Pepper will be doing a fuller write up of this regatta.

On to Club sailing. There will be the final day for seasons point this Sunday 18th
April. It would be great to have a good turn out and get all our new sailors on the
water. Jack Simpson has a new McKay boat and will need some tips to get up to speed.
We now have 20 starlings at Wakatere, the national champion, traveller series
wilnner,  regatta winners, etc.... so one of the strongest club fleets. 

The following Sat 24th Apr is the North Harbour Champs at Wakatere. This does clash
with Auckland Girls Champs Regatta at Kohi on the same day. Will keep you posted.

Sunday 25th Apr is the a fun day at the club. Parents and childs races with lasers,
wind surfers, ..... all sorts of sailing boats and boards to try on the day. 

Sunday 2nd May is club closing day with special events planned.

Make the most of this lovely sailing weather

Donn 

The Supercity regatta has just finished. We have an Asia Pacific champion and the
traveller series has also been completed. We had two International sailors, Joel
Turner from Queensland and Tanus Henry from Rarotonga both of whom made a special
trip to New Zealand to sail in this regatta and both of whom could have done with a
good deal more breeze, which probably never got above 10kts at any stage. 8 of the 9
scheduled races were completed in beautiful weather off Torbay SC, with once again
the Starling class having the most entries.
Mahia Pepper from Murrays Bay is the new Asia Pacific champion, with Oscar Rorvick
second and Romano Chung third.
In the traveller series there was an incredibly close finish amongst the top places.
Only half a point separated first and second place with James Roberts on (173.5) and
Mahia Pepper on (173). Romano Chung was clear in third (155), and then  Matthew
Kempkers 4th (135), Elise Beavis 5th and first female (133), Josh Salthouse 6th
(131.5) and Trent Jones 7th (130)
With points being x 1.5 for the Supercity regatta those who made the effort to come
were usually rewarded with a boost to their overall score.
There is already talk of repeating the Supercity regatta next year. It was realy
good having the focus on the Youth sailors for a change. Your feedback on this
regatta and on the traveller series would be welcomed. We have been invited by
Hamilton YC to include their Towson regatta in the traveller series next year. 
It has been great to see the Starling still the most popular youth class at regatta
after regatta this year and we hope to make next year even more successful for the
Starling. For those in the area outside of the North of the North island we would be
delighted to help you build the regattas in your area through this email list and
the website.
Finally if you know of any new sailors to the Starling class who should be on this
mailing list please let us know so that they can be kept informed.

Richard Brown
Starling Class Association

In the Starling fleet Wakatere was represented by Matthew Kempkers, Mahia Pepper and James Roberts. This was a two day regatta held in the bay off Howick Beach with Waiheke in the background. Lets cut to the Chase- Mahia cleaned up with 1,(8),2,1,1,1,1 James fought back valiantly despite two deep spots to come second with (15),4,1,1,15,2,2, and Matthew was consist enough to take third with 6,2,4,7,4,(10),7. A clean sweep for Wakatere- Hurra!

The Auckland Champs contributed to the Starling Traveller Series and it was expected that the best of Auckland's Sailors would be there. As it turns out next weekend is the 29er nationals so several of the Top Gun sailors were competing in the 29ers. Our National Champion Logan Dunning Beck for example. There were 18 entries.

The weather forecast- uncharacteristically was pretty much bang on for the weekend. Light winds filling in on Saturday and swinging from the south to the south west- building to 30 odd knots, Sunday it was going to be somewhat lighter and sit in the southwest quadrant around the 15-20kt range.

This meant there was a short sharp chop, no real swell and gusty winds oscillating back and forth off the cliffs and bays.

The first two races on Saturday were light 7-12kts the third it nuked at about 25kts perhaps a few gusts higher and the forth it backed off a touch to a relatively moderate 20-25kts. On Sunday the wind was coming and going at about 20 minute intervals, 20 minutes at around 7-12kts then 20 minutes at around 15-24kts. The pressure lines were running down the course- a pressure line from the right followed by one from the left at very erratic intervals. As some of the sailors observed the left was always followed sooner or later by a right which was followed sooner or later by a left shift and so on.