Last Saturday saw the staging of the annual battle of the “owner drivers”, the  North Sails Young 88 Owners Champs.  Twelve boats lined up on the waters between Browns Island, North Head, Rangitoto and Kohimarama.  The conditions were almost perfect with a balmy10-18 knot from the West. 

The usual tight battles ensued throughout the fleet as evidenced by the number of equal results.

The exception was Slipstream 3’s “Brady Bunch” of Gavin Brady (helm), Carrington Brady, David Brooke, Max South, Sam Bell, Alastair Gifford, and Ryan Houston. You are doing OK when you must discard a first place!

Gavin gave us a bit of the back story: 

“David Brooke and Phil Salthouse completed Slipstream from hull and decks 32 years ago and won the Nationals. That was what the class was all about – build a boat and go race.  Brooke has been part of the Slipstream team over the past 5 months and helping sort out the boat. It was a very rewarding day to win the owners nationals”

Second on line was Nick Gillies helming Waka Huia and third was Chris Macindoe on War Machine with identical points and places forcing the tie to be broken by the boat that finished ahead in the last race.  The War Canoe prevailed on line and the War Machine was the first Corinthian boat (no sailing pros aboard).

Fourth on line and winner on corrected time was Medium Dry helmed by Phil Rzepecky with Rod Davis calling tactics from the back.  Greg Wilshire and crew on Vagabond scored an excellent 4^th on handicap. Greg is a new owner, first time racing the boat with some very secondhand sails and succeeded in scaring the pants off many especially in the first race.

The competition was a fierce as usual, but contact and damage avoided and it was great to see boats acknowledging fault and doing their penalty turns. 

The team from Buckland’s Beach Yacht Club led by Chris Marsh on the water and Gavin Haslip (Babe) off the water did their usual excellent job managing racing in a breeze that would not stay still followed by fun socialising and relaxed prize giving back at the club.

Big thanks also to event sponsor, North Sails, plus also Mount Gay Rum, Burnsco, Haslips Tyres, and New Balance and a special shout out to official photographer Rachel von Zalinsky and boat driver Finn from Live Sail Die for the brilliant photos.

Next up is Y88's @ the awesome Bay of Islands Sailing Week regatta January 21-24. We already have a record fleet of ten boats entered and are heading to twelve plus.

For more info check out the  Young 88 event page here, class news on the Y88 Association web site and the Young 88 Facebook page and event Facebook Photo Album