Last Thursday Wakatere went “on tour” to Taupo for the North Island Opti Champs, and yes it felt like a band tour – cars, trailers, tents, 27 sailors, 2 coaches, 5 RIB’s plus more! And what a great tour it was – unseasonably warm weather with a perfect range of conditions from 2-25 knots. Lake Taupo delivered us light and shifty conditions on Friday and Saturday and breezy and choppy conditions on Sunday, which is exactly what you expect in Lake Taupo. It was a big regatta with 220 Opti sailors from all over NZ and Australia.

We arrived on the Thursday afternoon and all went for a gentle sail on the Lake with Briar and Charlie, then got into the racing on Friday morning, getting through 10 races in the open fleet and 7 in the Green.

On the results front it was a very successful regatta-

Markus Somerville          2^nd Open (137 entries)

Tim Adair                         3^rd Open

Jonathon Weston            1^st 10 Year old – Open (70^th)

Airi Kawana                     4^th Green Fleet (63 entries)

Louis Ahlers                     8^th Green Fleet

Jonathon Barnett             10^th Green Fleet

Celia Willison                   2^nd Female, Green Fleet (14^th)

Hannah Smith                  1^st Green Fleet regatta (40^th)

Robbie McCutcheon       1^st Rainbow Fleet regatta, after completing Learn to Sail in the last holidays.

Full results and photos: http://www.ltyc.org.nz/regattas/regattas.html

Thanks to all for the parent help, everything ran smoothly – everyone learnt heaps and made some new friends. Dinner out on Saturday night was fun – we learnt that Charlie is fairly handy at the Pool table! Thanks also to Charlie and Briar for such capable and supportive coaching.

Len ended up 21^st out of 142 entries. They don’t run it as an open regatta for the locals and no green fleet regatta.

Each club has an allocation of places in proportion to their fleet size and the total fleet is 140 plus any overseas entries. They then select the top 40 eligible for next year’s worlds and other regattas and have another selection regatta in March with no carry over from this regatta except that the winner of this one gets an automatic berth for next year’s worlds. Some tough light shifty conditions for 2 days and “just able to sit on the side” puffy shifty stuff for the other 2 days. Fantastically well organised and run in typical Japanese style.

What a great weekend – fine weather, variety of breezes and great sailing.

We had a heap of Wakatere sailors at Howick with some great results and personal achievements. Nice work to Markus winning the Open fleet, Tim in second and a large bunch of Wakatere sailors in very respectable positions. Some great results in the Greenies as well.

Highlights for me – Sophie Andrews on Saturday afternoon choosing, under pressure to master a hairy Gybe in large chop and 15-18 knots, doing the Gybe in style, and then to hike hard off the stern to keep the bow out of the water….then the big smile!

I again wanted to collect Marsannes spot prize of a waterproof camera, but alas no.

Results Here:

http://www.howicksailingclub.co.nz/uploads/file/Junior%20Regatta%20Results%202010.pdf

Results are on the Manly Website:

http://www.sportsground.co.nz/files/Site/503/7/Pdf/101026205334TVJRSSTD.pdf

Well done to all the sailors who came along to the Winter Champs. It was a wonderful weekend for sailing and many of our sailors

were delighted to find that the efforts that they put in over winter has lifted their capability, and enjoyment of sailing a lot.

Wakatere had 36 sailors across all off the classes, with some great results:

Mathew Kempkers 3rd in the starlings, with Jack Simpson in 7th ( first regatta in a starling) in a fleet of 45.

Paul Snow Hansen 1st in the 470's

Hamish Dunning Beck 2nd in the Techno windsurfers.

Marcus Sommerville 2nd in Open fleet in Opti's in a fleet of 87 ( 13 from Wakatere).

Notable performances from:

Tim Adair 6th

Leonard Takahashi-Fry 16th

Sam Wallis 28th

Sam Barnett 35th

Jono Weston, first 10 year old in 48th.

Well done to some of the group for whom it was their first Open fleet regatta out of Wakatere.