The Alfred's News The Alfred's News Winter Edition 2018 | Page 13

Centreboard News
New Zealand Optimist Class Nationals
Event report by Fletcher Walters.
In March Jono Tuite, Daniel Links, Angus Renton and I went to compete in the New Zealand National Optimist Championship
in Picton on the South Island. It was a long day getting there as we had to get a flight and then get a 3 hour ferry to get to the
club.
The venue at Queen Charlotte Yacht Club was spectacular, with really tall hills surrounding the race area.
After training for a day or two we were ready to get stuck into the regatta. There were 137 entries in open fleet, so we were
broken into three fleets of around 45. Over the first couple of days we battled it out to see who would make it to the gold
fleet to race off for the trophies later in the week. I made a good start and was 5th after the first day and moved forward on
day 2 qualifying for the Gold Fleet along with Jono and Dan. Angus only just missed gold fleet by the smallest amount.
The race track was really shifty and puffy.
One race saw us sail in 5-20 knots and 60
degree wind shifts, so I was really happy that
I managed to keep all my places in the top
four in the first six races. We all train on
Pittwater in the winter time, so these
conditions are so unusual for RPAYC sailors.
protect himself from another high score.
In the Gold fleet racing in the back half of
the week and I was a point behind Kiwi Josh
Hyde. Daniel was right in the mix and Jono
had made a huge recovery after wearing an
OCS (47) in the first race. There was only
one drop, so he had to sail super smart to
In the end, my consistency had me win the regatta and Dan did a great job to tidy up second in front of George Lee Rush from
NZ and Josh. Jono had a blinder and did a great job stringing together some awesome scores to place 14th and Angus was on
the podium with second in the silver fleet.
I love racing in other countries. You meet some great people and we have friends we catch up with at all the events. Fun
things happen. With the cricket ‘Ball Tampering’ issue happening at the same time as this event, the Kiwis decided to give me
a special Opti trophy. This one was of an Opti, covered in sand paper. You had to laugh…
The Optis are a great way to start your international sailing as it is easy to travel with your rig and blades and charter a boat at
the event. I really encourage all our RPA Opti families to give it a try. You learn so much faster and you come away with
mates for life.