BMW Auckland Regatta revs up

Hauraki Gulf to host diverse fleet week Friday

One week out from the first gun we preview the diverse sailing fleet racing in the BMW Auckland Regatta starting Friday 20 February on the Hauraki Gulf.

The biggest boats in the fleet, including the Cookson 50 Pussy Galore, the Brett Bakewell-White 52 Wired and the Transpac 52 V5are more suited for ocean sailing and courses with long reaching legs, meaning that the BMW Auckland Regatta’s selection of short, upwind-downwind courses and Gulf races will test crew to the maximum as each turn of the corner is an exercise in crew-work and logistics.

Pussy Galore and Wired are both returned from a season in Australia, where their fleet racing skills were honed by the Queensland regattas of last winter, but V5 is dominating line honours results in summer’s Wednesday night racing racing. Also in their division is Higher Ground, a very well sailed Murray Ross design that can put on a great show and achieve results results that go far beyond its 35 foot of waterline, particularly if conditions don’t favour its bigger, swing keeled rivals.

Favourites for line honours in the forty foot division are the Farr 40s Psycho Circus and Bobby’s Girl. Bobby’s Girl is tipped to have had a very good summer season, and will face off against the Z-39 BMW Yachtsport, which has recently been fitted with a new keel for an improvement in boatspeed, and Andy Anderson’s 12m Elliott sloop Sure Thing. Bullrush, based at Bucklands Beach Yacht Club, will be the unknown in the fleet which is otherwise resident in Auckland’s inner city, but impressed on the Auckland to Fiji race last year and is known as a consistently well-sailed performer.

In terms of close racing that is going to demand exceptional sailing performance to win, the event may well be dominated by the IRC division.

The BMW Auckland Regatta is the third and final event in the national IRC championship series. 2007’s IRC National Champions Georgia ONE goes into the series with a win at Bay of Islands Sailing Week, while Hard Labour is second and Powerplay third.

The 10.2m Farr designed Hard Labour is the smallest of the championship contenders and will be pitted against bigger, more modern rivals in Georgia ONE and Powerplay, hoping that good sailing will be enough to give them the national title for 2009. The IRC boats will be joined by members of the Platu 25 fleet, including Chris Brodie’s SLAM. The Platu 25s arrived in New Zealand late last year and are still unproven against other Auckland boats.

Multihulls have embraced the BMW Auckland Regatta and consider it one of the premier events of the year for the fleet, which has recently made the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron its headquarters. Favourites are Taeping, Predictwind.com and Dirty Deeds.

Boats to watch within B division are the Elliot 9m Overload which sports a canting keel and has proved very quick in summer racing to date. But Whatever, and Mark and Kevin Mulcare’s Fun’n’Games is a modern, powerful design with a versatile sail wardrobe that is very fast in the right conditions, and other competition, including Wild Blue, Future Feedback and Pacific Sundance, will push them every step of the way.

The remaining divisions, based on the PHRF handicapping system, are represented by a selection of smaller cruiser racers, including Fantail, Hysteria, Cool Change, Stratocaster, Private Dancer, RnB, FX, Rattle n Rum, and Gladiator.

Other notable entrants are the little 6m class boat Scout, which is believed to be the world’s oldest member of its class and has swapped its carbon fibre rig for a wooden one in preparation for the 6m World Championships in Newport Rhode Island later in the year, and a strong Young 88 division, readying itself for the intensely competitive national championships event later in the season.

The race course will centre on the western side of Browns Island. Two windward leeward and a harbour course will be sailed on Friday and Sunday, and four windward leeward courses will be sailed on Saturday.

The BMW Auckland Regatta is organised by the Auckland Regatta Trust, a joint initiative between the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and the Bucklands Beach Yacht Club, in order to foster and promote amateur sailing in the region.

The event is sponsored by BMW, KPMG, Auckland City Council and Manukau City Council, and is further supported by North Sails, SeaSpray, BSP Design, Mount Gay Rum, Yanmar, OKI and Fullers.

More information, including a Notice of Race and latest news, can be found at http://www.rnzys.org.nz or http://www.bbyc.org.nz