Auckland 18 regatta

After a brief stop in Sydney, it was back on a plane to Auckland. The Kiwi's have been trying to get a fleet of 18 footers going over there for a while and they had organised a regatta at the end of our season so we could all make it. Auckland is very similar to Sydney geographically, with the harbour, bridge city etc, but on a smaller scale. It is a great place to sail as there is a strong tidal influence making the racing quite strategic trying to figure out whats going on both above and below the water. Our aussie fleet send over two containers of boats, I think the fleet ended up at 13, all in all a pretty good turn out for a new regatta.

Sailing with me on Club Marine were Herman Winning and Peter Harris. Although we are all really good mates, we have never all been on the same boat together. I had faith though that Herman's high level of fitness and Peters strong diplomacy skills would pull us through.
Seve, Sam and Rob sailing their boat gotta love it 7 were also in NZ and would be hard to beat coming off a second place in the Giltinan back in Feburary.

We managed a pretty consistent week with 2 firsts and 5 seconds. Seven had 5 ones, a five and an eight, so in the end we were tied and they won on a countback. Great sailing a little bit of everything with breezes from 6 to 20 knots. I hope the Kiwi's get their fleet up and running and we can make it an annual event.

It wouldn't be right not to mention the after hours activities that took place during the regatta. As it was a fairly low key event, some of the boys tried to take post sailing partying to a new level. The long and the short of it is that the Auckland Central Police station is not a very classy estabilishment at 1am, nor are the bouncers at the Loaded Hog particularly interested in being target practice for the world pot plant throwing championships. Fortunately after a day or so to sober up the local magistrate saw fit to only fine the offending character and we may be allowed back into the country at a later date.
Definitely upholding all the traditions of the 18 foot skiff class, perhaps even a performance the local 12 foot skiff boys could be proud of!!