2001 P Class and Starling North Islands Championships.

By Tom Taylor

The P Class and Starling North Island championships were held at Heretaunga Boating Club over Labour Weekend. The weather looked good with a nice northerly on the Saturday and the promise of an approaching southerly. Three races were held on the Saturday, three on the Sunday and then a final race on the Monday. A total of 46 P Class and 27 Starlings competed.

The Worser Bay P Class crew consisted of Rowan Swanson who finished 11^th overall, Aaron Hume-Merry 16^th, and myself at 9^th. The Starling crew consisted of Sam Melville 7^th , Andrew Whiteford 18^th and Craig Rhyburn 20^th .

The Southerly came through on Sunday as promised and produced a lovely 10-15 knots of wind for three races before it swung back to the North. The start of the final race left something to be desired as the course was set about 2km uptide from the Clubhouse and only half the P class fleet managed to reach the start line in time for the gun. Competitors, including me, started up to five minutes late. Heretaunga race officials obviously don’t believe in waiting for the majority of the fleet to arrive! They also didn’t seem to worry about OCS’s on the pin end and it didn’t take long for the top Auckland sailors to figure this out. The prize giving was notable for its lack of sponsorship prizes and even the trophies were handed out after the prize giving had finished. That is after the winners had left!

The overall winner in the P’s was Riley Dean of Lyttleton. The Kohimarama (Auckland) girls took out 3^rd, 4^th, 6^th and 8^th in the P’s.

The winner in the Starlings was Luke Gower of Murrays Bay. David Tucker from Napier was second. David sailed in the winter series at Titahi Bay and comes down to Wellington for the special coaching days.

The P Nationals and Tanner Cup are being held at Heretaunga over Christmas.