International Racing returns to our shores

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21 December 2022 NEW YEARS DAY KAWAU REGATTA

1 January 2023 HAVANA CLUB RUM RACE

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21 - 22 January

STARLING MATCH RACING NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

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1, 15 February 1, 15, 29 March

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17 - 19 March

International racing returns to our shores

By Billy Woodworth Following Covid-imposed years of isolation, Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron staff and volunteers have had a hectic end-of-year hosting the return of international sailing events, including the Barfoot & Thompson Women’s Match Racing World Championship and the Globe 40 Round the World Race.

The women’s match race worlds followed hard on the heels of women’s New Zealand national championships and saw RNZYS crews – Celia Willison’s Edge Women’s Match Team and Megan Thomson’s 2.0 Racing – finish behind reigning world champion Pauline Courtois’ Match in Pink crew from France.

The logistics and organisation behind a major world championship test every aspect of the host club both on the water and off and the RNZYS was pleased to rise to the challenge after the long absence of international competition.

“All of the event team, staff and volunteers from RNZYS hosted a world-class event and made all of us and the international teams feel very welcome in Auckland,” said Women’s World Match Racing Tour travelling representative James Pleasance.

“The RNZYS has a very impressive match racing programme and facilities, and it is very encouraging to see the club supporting women in sailing and match racing as well.

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Above: Keeping the combatants fed and watered – General Manager Sarah Wiblin and Facilities Manager Cooper Hopman prepare for the victory celebrations at the Women’s Match Race Worlds.. Opposite: The reigning world champion French Match in Pink crew led by Pauline Courtois on their way to defending their title in Auckland. – LiveSailDie photo

“We look forward to the opportunity of returning to the RNZYS and Auckland again,” he added, noting it was a particular pleasure to be competing at the home of the America’s Cup.

The hosting process for the 2022 Barfoot & Thompson Women’s Match Racing World Championship began in 2019 and finally swung into action in October, following Covid disruptions.

In addition to the huge effort put in by the Race Management team, umpires and support crew on the water, a world championship involves a multitude of off-water tasks including organising billets for the crew, pick-ups from the airport, accommodating international media, umpires, and officials, daily briefings and protests, as well as the opening ceremony and closing prizegiving – which doubled as the inaugural Women’s World Match Racing Tour prizegiving as well.

With 70 competitors and 30 volunteers from around the world to kept fed and hydrated alongside a far busier than usual Members’ Bar, the galley team was kept busy preparing daily breakfasts, packed lunches and buffet dinners over the four days of racing.

The Youth Building workshop was a hive of activity throughout the weekend with wild weather playing havoc on the water and causing plenty of late nights for the repair team.

“We were pretty much all go all week in the repair team,” said repair boat driver and team member Johnny Montgomery.

“Geoff Dawson, Giles Jordan and I had to step up to the challenges, but it was all very worthwhile in the end”.

The RNZYS also took aboard the tasks of exposing our visitors to plenty of New Zealand culture, with ‘Welcome to Auckland’ guide packs

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MARINA, DRYSTACK, HAULOUT AND MARINE PRECINCT.

20T and 60T haulout trailer (9m air draft limit) Covered and uncovered hardstand All trades available on site or DIY Onsite fuel supplied by GOfuel 270 berth dry stack boat storage 10-25m marina berths available Located 5 minutes off motorway at Mt Wellington; 20 minutes from Westhaven.

Chelsea Williams and her crew from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia enjoy a night at the Women’s Rugby World Cup. – Sarah Wiblin photo

and a whakatau at the opening ceremony thanks to Ngati Whatua Orakei and Auckland Unlimited.

Thanks to New Zealand Rugby, we were also able to offer all teams prime seats on the halfway line for the Women’s Rugby World Cup final, a once-in-a-lifetime experience and for many of the teams, their first rugby game.

“It was a particular highlight for us to be at the home of the America’s Cup and for the event participants to have the opportunity visit the final of the Women’s Rugby World Cup at Eden Park, an amazing joining of two world championship sporting events,” said James Pleasance.

Each day saw a media team from the Squadron, the Women’s World Match Racing Tour and Live Sail Die producing content of all shapes and sizes for people on and off the water. Post-racing media conference live streams on Facebook and YouTube were run by Cooper Hopman and William Woodworth with a rotating cast of General Committee members as hosts supported by Scarbro Construction and Auckland Unlimited.

The Squadron Sustainability Committee led by Michele and Jon Henderson set the tough task of ensuring the event met the Sailors for the Sea Clean Regatta Gold standard. Teams were invited to assist in a Westhaven Marina clean-up before racing got underway on Day Three of competition.

The visiting APCC team of Margot Riou and the local ‘Sailing Mums’ team each cleared over 6kg of rubbish from the Westhaven area, with more than 25kg of rubbish including an e-bike pulled from the sea!

Gift packs including products from EcoStore, and Dubarry clothing were distributed to all competitors.

Despite the Squadron being short-staffed, all departments chipped in when necessary throughout the regatta to help with everything from bar service to boat repairs, showing great camaraderie and humour throughout.

Adding another dimension to the international proceedings, the Globe 40 crews also made the RNZYS their home during their Auckland stopover. The Globe 40 Round the World Race is a two-handed, sevenstop circumnavigation aboard the one-design Class40 yacht.

The crews made it to Auckland on their fourth leg with the lead boat arriving 34 days after leaving Mauritius on September 11, 2022. After nearly 6,000 miles at sea, the first two boats were within three miles of each other at the finish line manned by a RNZYS Race Management team, who spent a rough night aboard Te Kouma awaiting their arrival off Milford Beach.

North Wharf became the home base for the Globe40 fleet and the Squadron acted as the host club for dinners, briefings and sponsor events for the Globe40 teams and race officials before sending them off on their next leg to Papeete, Tahiti.

US pair Micah Davis and Craig Horsfield finishing the 6000-mile Mauritius-to-Auckland leg of the Globe40 race. – Peter Linford Photo.

A yacht for going places and getting things done

Words by Ivor Wilkins • Photography by Gareth Cooke

Expedition styling is an increasingly popular genre in boat design, but in many instances, it is only skin deep. Dip below the surface and oftentimes the engineering and equipment lack real expedition intent, while the interior is all marble tops, gold taps and Versace fabrics. That is not the case with the latest build from Lloyd Stevenson Boatbuilders.

At every level, the 24m ketch Wind Spirit chooses substance over styling and declares its muscular purpose with a strict devotion to function over form. Its shape, construction, general specification and layout all reflect a disciplined, single-minded adherence to mostly short-handed sailing in remote high latitude regions with autonomy for long periods.

The project is the result of a collaboration between Swiss designer Arnaud de Marignac and the European owner, a close friend and fellow racer, who chooses to remain anonymous. “We have raced together over many years on the European circuit, suffering on the same decks, pulling on the same ropes, pushing on the same handles,” says de Marignac.

“Originally, I designed this boat for myself. My friend basically agreed with everything about it and said, ‘Go ahead, build it.’ I remain involved, first as owner’s representative through the build and commissioning and then as delivery skipper. He intends to do some singlehanded sailing, but we will do double-handed expeditions together as well.”

After looking at construction yards in Europe and the US, de Marignac came to New Zealand. When he discovered Lloyd Stevenson Boatbuilders, he knew he needed to look no further. “If I was going to start all over again, I would have no hesitation in working with them. I am very impressed.”

In the list of priorities for Wind Spirit endurance clearly ranks high, but not at the expense of sailing performance. With their shared racing background, neither de Marignac nor the owner would be content rumbling along in the slow lane.

The high freeboard hull with its abrupt vertical transom and near-vertical bow extends waterline length to maximise sailing efficiency with 200-mile daily averages in mind.

Built tough, the hull construction features six layers of cold-molded yellow cedar in a matrix of longitudinal and diagonal layers, encased in an outer skin of e-glass and Kevlar for high-

impact resistance. A 1m-long sacrificial bow section and fore and aft watertight bulkheads are designed to maintain watertight integrity in the event of a collision.

The rig is a fractional cutter ketch supported on Hall Spars carbon masts with all-carbon standing rigging. The main mast features three sets of swept-back spreaders with a conventional backstay, but no running backstays, while the double-spreader mizzen has no backstay.

The ketch configuration, argues de Marignac, provides plenty of power, but divides it into several individual sails of relatively low surface area. “This makes the sailplan easier to handle, but also to balance, easing the load on the autopilot, which is a very important aspect of this design,” he says.

Working back from the bow, a code zero, a working jib, a staysail, the mainsail, mizzen staysail and mizzen offers the potentially stirring combination of six sails powering the boat along in reaching conditions.

Smaller individual sails also make sense in this case because of a philosophical mistrust of furling technology. The headsails are all hank-on, a seldom-specified requirement on modern cruisers, let alone a powerful 24m yacht intended primarily for solo and doublehanded sailing.

“I am not keen on furling sails,” de Marignac declares. “They are binary. They are either in or out. I have seen boats with sails half furled and it is terrible. Also, Murphy’s Law says they will jam at the worst possible time, in the middle of the night with the wind howling on a lee shore, the engine out of commission and half the crew sick. Thanks, but no thanks. I am pretty old fashioned, which is why I like hank-on sails.”

Old fashioned, perhaps, but also keen to embrace state-of-the-art performance technology in the form of a full wardrobe of high-tech Stratis Doyle Sails. “Everything comes from a racing mentality and background,” he says. “The quality of equipment and the deck layout design is all to racing standard.”

In keeping with the hank-on approach, the mainsail and mizzen both utilise traditional slab reefing – four on the main and two on the mizzen – with lazy jacks and conventional carbon booms.

This “old school” approach extends to the handling systems. In a veritable battery of 17 Harken winches, only three are electric. The rest rely on muscle and grunt.

While the crew will undoubtedly work their passages, their safety and welfare are well considered. Permanent webbing lines run along the sidedecks for crew moving forward to clip on safety harnesses, while waist-high stainless steel guardrails provide all-round protection and handholds.

“Most yachts have much lower guardrails,” notes de Marignac, “which are very easy to fall over and ensure you break both knees on the way.”

Built tough for high latitude sailing, a sacrificial bow section and fore and aft watertight bulkheads ensure watertight integrity. The ketch configuration spreads the sailplan into manageable sizes for short-handed sailing. Note the hank-on headsail and high guardrails for protecting crew.

Above: Although the interior layout reflects the no-nonsense aesthetic of the yacht, the craftsmanship and joinery is finished to an extremely high standard. Note the practical, snug sea-going galley with high fiddles and deep sinks. Opposite: One of two double suites.

At sea, a favoured spot will be the inwardfacing watch seats set into the high cockpit coamings under the shelter of the hard dodger, which provide shelter from the elements and good all-round visibility.

Having established its credentials as a rugged, no-nonsense sailing machine designed by and for highly-experienced offshore sailors, the interior reflects a similarly purposeful aesthetic.

It is all very simple and sensible.

Sustainably-sourced anegre timber joinery creates a warm below-decks ambience, with the companionway leading down from the cockpit to a comfortable saloon with seating around a generous table.

The adjacent galley is built for producing meals at sea, its U-shaped configuration snug enough to prevent its occupants from falling in any direction and well equipped with all electric appliances, deep stainless steel sinks, gimballed induction cooking hob and counters rimmed with deep fiddles to stop pots, plates and pans from sliding to oblivion.

Again, function trumps glitz and glamour. It is an ocean-going galley to sustain an expedition crew, not a celebrity kitchen for serving lavish, large-scale banquets. Ample refrigeration, a 300-litre freezer, plenty of storage for provision and supplies ensure long-term self-sufficiency in remote regions. There is also a laundry.

Large battery banks are charged by the main engine alternator, solar panels, and two

SOLD

32 Sarsfield St, Herne Bay

Sold after only five days on the market • Achieved $530,000 over reserve • our network introduced 50% of buyers at auction • Owner of nearly 70 years thrilled with the result • Selling? We have cash buyers ready to go.

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