New Zealand Laser Association

The 2015 North Harbour Masters was held at Lake Pupuke on 8 November, attracting a good fleet of 26 Masters; 20 Standard and 6 Radial and including several out of town visitors. The weather gods turned on a beautiful el nino spring day, fine and warm but unfortunately with a very light and variable westerly breeze. 

All Results

Pupuke is never easy but with the wind regularly shifting up to 45 degrees and many flat spots between the puffs everyone found it challenging and no one was able to consistently dominate, although the Pupuke fleet members showed out in the final results, indicating that maybe local knowledge counted for something, even though none of us could actually figure out what! In the standards there were 5 different winners in the 5 races while in the Radial 3 sailors scored bullets.
 
At the end of the day the final results in the Standards came down to a countback, with Nick Page (GM) coming out on top from Gary Lock (GM) by virtue of having managed a win in race 2. There was another tie for 3^rd and 4^th with Tony Nicholson (M) edging out club commodore John Dowsett (GM), again by virtue of securing a race win. Club stalwart John was extremely unlucky not to triumph having the best 3 race score for the day (2,2,3) but getting caught out by shifts in the other 2 races.  It was great to see Michelle Bain (WM) join the fleet as the start of her preparations for the 2017 World Master Games Laser event at Torbay and we hope to see many more new or returning faces through the season as we build towards the 2017 contest.
 
In the Radials it again took a tie break to determine the winner by the slimmest of margins, with Murray Bain  (M) only triumphing by virtue of a superior discard from Georgi Yankov (M), with both sailors counting 2 wins and 2 seconds. Third and leading Apprentice was Vladimir Minkov.
 
So another successful start to the seasons Masters regattas and we look forward to strong fleets at the upcoming SI champs at Charteris Bay, NI’s in Napier and Sir Peter Blake regatta at Torbay over the next few weeks.
 
Nick Page

• Sam Meech – 8th
• Mike Bullot – 10th
• Andy Maloney – 11th
• Sara Winther – 19th

Full Results

Sailors comments on yachtingnz.org.nz

Prepared for the NZLA AGM 20 Oct 2015
 
The Laser class has again led the way for dinghy sailing nationally with good fleets to many regattas across the country and we have again seen our sailors perform well at international level.
 
Internationally, while the court case with the licensee and builders remains unresolved it has been great to see the new Standard Rig sail released as of November and hopefully we will see progress on the other ongoing equipment issues, principally bending top and Radial bottom sections, shortly.
 
Congratulations to Scott Leith for landing another Radial World title. There were also many solid performances from our top Youth, Open and Masters sailors at international regattas.
 
Our grants and coaching initiatives has again continued and NZLA will continue to encourage and sponsor coaching this season for any club or group of Laser sailors. It is often difficult to find suitable slots where coaches are available and thanks to Mike Keeton for his continued perseverance in organising the class coaching.
 
The Nationals at Takapuna were a success with the total fleet of 150+ boats. We hope to see a continuation of the strong support from sailors at this seasons contest at Muritai.
 
This raises one of the issues currently facing NZLA. With the new ISAF world cup regatta format our top international sailors need to attend the ISAF Miami regatta in January 2016, meaning that they will be overseas and miss our Nationals. Your committee have discussed our options and agreed that for 2016 and 2017 we will continue with our Nationals in January as the advantages of these dates outweigh the disadvantages. However if the ISAF program remains unchanged we may need to consider a change, at least to the Open division Nationals, in the future.
 
The local initiative for women’s sailing and the special women’s regattas have continued this season with increasing participation and a special thanks to Chantal for her ongoing organisation of this program.
 
With the 2017 World Masters games Laser sailing at Torbay we are looking to attract additional Masters sailors to our fleets. The 2017 contest will be open entry and an ideal opportunity for Masters to join the class with a specific target in mind.
 
Financially we again enjoyed a satisfactory year and the association remains in good financial health.
 
A proposal was raised last year for NZLA to purchase boats for charter. After quite extensive investigation of the options we did not proceed with this as the potential costs and complications of owning, managing, storing and chartering boats were found to be just too difficult for an organisation of the nature of NZLA to commit too.
 
Karen Grimwade has again done a great job as our secretary. I again would like to thank all our committee for their input this year, particularly Mike Keeton who in the dual roles of Treasurer and Coaching Coordinator and Mike Knowsley for his ongoing work on our high quality and constantly evolving website. If anyone would like to join the committee or propose or discuss any Laser issue you are always welcome to contact me or any member of the committee via the NZLA website e mail contacts
 
Thanks and enjoy another season of challenges sailing a great little boat.
 
Nick Page -Chairman NZLA

• Ali Nightingale 26th
• Olivia Christie 36th
• Megan Thomson 45th

In the Mens Radial

• Tim Adair 24th Gold fleet
• Alastair Gifford 34th Gold fleet
• George Gautrey 36th Gold fleet
• James Jennings 17th Silver fleet
• Blake Woodfield 31st Silver fleet

• Andrew Mckenzie 19th Gold fleet
• Matt Kempkers 53rd Gold fleet

All mens results

And in the womens Radial

• Libby Porter 63rd

All womens results

Photo courtesy of SailingShot.com

Kingston is a quaint town at the mouth of the St Lawrence Seaway where it exits Lake Ontario.

This was important because;

• It was a nice place to be and kept the other half's happy; weather was good and water warm despite the fact that only a few months ago it was meter thick ice
• It is really a slow flowing river we sailed on, not a lake, which was critical if one was silly enough to try and squeeze a mark against the current and definitely affected which side of the course was favoured, sometimes.
• Where we sailed it was about 1.5 miles from the shore at Kingston to the opposite island shore, meaning that wherever the wind came from it was sort of an offshore breeze, with the associated variations in pressure and direction. Worst the day it came from the N but still applied to the S wind days.
• There seemed to be no real weight in the breezes, warm air off the lake meant 12 knots felt like 8 at home so even when the regatta report says 12 knots most of the day it felt like the hiking strap was often more of a weight adding feature than a required one.

The net result of this was that sailing in Kingston posed many challenges to the mortals; as I said to one person who asked……train on Pupuke and expect the shifts to be larger and the pressure to be more variable……then add waves and current. Kingston is a tricky place to sail. The general wisdom was that you go left in Kingston. Well, with the exception of the last day when the rule definitely applied it was more like Right paid first beat, left second, left paid first downwind, right second etc etc. Really weird chop with reflection off the sea wall near the bottom of the course, just plain tricky. Question for the day for me was often: is a pressure knock better than a lull lift…….if only I knew the answer. 

The really top guys, Scott, Adonis, Peter Shope in our GM fleet etc seem to have the speed to get there every race but for the rest of us the brain cells were fried by the end of each race.

Given the above, as usual the cream rose to the top and the results in most divisions were that the truly great sailors won, many good sailors did well but others just got confused and the rest of us wondered how the top guys did it with such consistency. 

For team NZ that meant Scott did it again in the Apprentice Masters Radial, and congratulations to him on another well earned world title cube. Matt Blakey showed exceptional consistency to finish second and get a cube in the AM Standards behind current Greek Olympic sailor Adonis Bougiouris. Both Bob Blakey and Michael Shields showed that they had fried far less brain cells than many of the younger members of the team, with Bob 3rd in the GGM Standard and Mike 3rd in the Radial 75+ division. Other notable team performances were Mike Knowsley’s 4th in the Masters Radial and Roger Winton 7th in the GM Radials and Andrew Dellabarca, 11th in a very strong Masters Standard Fleet.

The rest of us enjoyed the regatta, recruited for the 2017 Masters Games in our spare time and generally enjoyed somewhat variable results on the water.

Given the at times trying conditions the regatta was extremely well managed and we are all looking forward to the opportunity to do it all again in Mexico in 2016 with the promise of “guaranteed” fresh sea breezes and real waves….time will tell.

Nick Page

• Standard Results
• Radial Results
• Photos from SailingShot.com

In early July, Ali Nightingale, Megan Thomson and Lachlan Grimwade headed off for the (much warmer) waters of Brisbane to compete in the Queensland Youth Week Regatta in the Laser Radial. The competition was the final of 3 regattas in the Australian qualifying series, drawing the most competitive youth sailors from across Australia making up the 47 boat fleet. Despite challenging and often light conditions, Ali finished up as 6th women and 19th overall, Megan as 13th women making 39th overall while Lachlan finished up 15th overall.
- Lachy Grimwade

2015 Queensland Yout Week - Radial Results

www.qldyouthweek.com

We see Lachy also competed in the 4.7 for the Sail Brisbane. Getting 2nd overall in the 16 boat fleet.
- ed

2015 Sail Brisbane 4.7 Results

Andy Maloney had a solid finish at the Miami round of the ISAF Sailing World Cup to get 4th overall.
Sara Winther finished 9th, even after a frustrating yellow flag while running equal 2nd in the medal race.
Other Laser results were Sam Meech 13th and Mike Bullot 23rd.
And of course 2 gold medals for 470 crew Jo Aleh & Polly Powrie and Alexandra Maloney & Molly Meech in the 49erFX.

• Laser Mens Results
• Laser Radial Womens Results
• Results for all fleets

The results demonstrate close competition among the top NZ Laser sailors as we get further into the Rio Olympic cycle.

Laser (39 boats)
3rd Mike Bullot
4th Sam Meech
6th Andy Maloney
11th Thomas Saunders
17th Andrew McKenzie
29th Cullen Le Roy

Laser Radial (30 boats)
11th Susannah Pyatt
18th Ali Nightingale
29th Julia Francis

All 2014 Sail Melbourne Results