52 Breeze Magazine
The summer stars shine bright at prize-giving The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron Summer Series Prize Giving was recently held on the 29th May 2021. This year the event changed slightly to recognise all ‘series’ winners from the RNZYS club racing over the 2020/2021 summer. This included the Doyle Sails Wednesday Series, which is one of the biggest RNZYS series with 100 boats and 800-plus sailors competing; all the weeknight sprint racing, including Nespresso E7 sprints, Y88 Sprints, Barfoot & Thompson Ladies series, Coast Etchells Series, Havana Club Rum Racing and the Stewart 34 sprint racing. In the past the RNZYS Annual prize giving has focused on the 36 Degrees Brokers Commodores Cup racing only. This has proved a successful formula with all 270 tickets sold out two weeks in advance and the biggest prize giving at the RNZYS in the past five or more years. The RNZYS will also have a ‘Winter Series prize giving’ in early October, recognising all the series place-getters from the Doyle Sails Winter Series and other racing over the winter. Another new initiative this season, designed to bring more value to the CBRE Club Championships, is to have all the divisional club champions race off against each other in the fleet of matched MRXs, with the winning team funded to represent the RNZYS at the Seawanhaka International regatta in Long Beach LA. Unfortunately with Covid this year the regatta has been postponed. In its place the RNZYS has been working with the Rarotonga Sailing Club to set up an event of a RNZYS club team to compete in. After drawing the names of all the club champions at the annual prize giving this year, Barry Martin and his crew from Bizzarre, who were the B division club champions (PHS), will represent the RNZYS at this event in August 2021. As always, we need to give a special mention to the RNZYS Race Management team. The RNZYS is extremely lucky to have a dedicated and skilled group of 50 volunteers who run all the racing at the club. They are passionate about what they do, and are without a doubt the biggest asset of the club. Laurie Jury, Sailing Director
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Among those in the limelight were: 1/ Janet Airey & Colin Lucas – Race Management. 2/ Mike Malcolm, Bird on the Wing crew. 3/ PIC Insurance Brokers group. 4/ Wendy Muir – Barfoot & Thompson Ladies Series. 5/ Extreme girls. 6/ Mike Leyland & War Machine who won Boat of the Year. 7/ Aaron Hume-Merry and Tom Coote – Clockwork Racing. 8/ Wedgetail Racing crew. 9/ Mayhem Racing crew.
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