www.classicyacht.org.nz
ISSN 1175-804X
Issue 134 – June 2021
Above: Waitangi and crew watch Race 5 of the America’s Cup, while the Cup foilers joust (below).
Grand old Dame shares limelight with Cup sprites By Penelope Carroll Both are marvelous examples of world-leading New Zealand boat design and construction, both are monohulls (just a foot apart in overall length), built solely for racing, and both were racing on the Waitemata on Saturday, March 13. But that’s where the similarities between Waitangi, built in 1894, and Te Rehutai, our victorious America’s Cup defender, end. Old heavy displacement kauri boats with long keels do not race around the harbour in the same way as
their carbon-fibre fin-keeled sisters – let alone when the latter, with their wings, flaps and foils, are foiling! After competing earlier in the day in the Duder Cup Regatta (first held in 1881 as the North Shore Regatta and renamed the Duder Cup in 1923), Waitangi dropped
her sails and joined the ring of spectator boats watching Te Rehutai and Luna Rossa battle it out for Race 5 of the 36th America’s Cup. Weaving slowly amongst the watching flotilla of all shapes and sizes, Waitangi was by far the oldest vessel – and a grand sight.
This is not the first time Waitangi has turned heads at an America’s Cup regatta. During the Millennium summer of 2000, Waitangi returned to Auckland after half a century in Australia. As New Zealand went about its first successful defence of the America’s Cup with state-of-the-art 21st century technolgy, Waitangi represented a wooden masterpiece from the 19th century – and created a stir wherever she went. Just as she did 21 years later, when New Zealand successfully defended the Cup for a second time.
