KEY POINTS:
Amateur Kiwi sailors keen for some top-class competition should seriously think about heading to Auckland next summer for the new BMW Auckland Regatta Week.
Billed as Auckland's "ultimate regatta week" the inaugural event will culminate in the BMW Sailing Cup, a two-day event that will see the winner off to compete in the BMW Sailing Cup International World Final in Dubai in April.
The first three days of the regatta, from February 29 to March 3, will consist of divisions for IRC Nationals, classic yachts, multihulls and sports boats. Complete with international jury, it will be held over three days and consist of a series of windward-leeward and harbour courses.
The new annual regatta, a joint venture between sponsor BMW, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron (RNZYS) and Bucklands Beach Yacht Club (BBYC), is designed to provide intense international-class competition for amateur sailors.
According to RNZYS rear commodore, Ross Masters, it will also help to greatly improve crew skills.
"With consecutive races you can continually look at how you can improve your sailing," he says. "This means if you have a slow gybe in one race, you can talk about it, sort it out and do better next time. That's much easier if next time is almost straight away, rather than two weeks later as in a normal race series."
Competition in all the divisions is likely to be intense. The reward for winning is not only the glory and the bragging rights but, more importantly, entry into the new BMW Sailing Cup.
For this event, to be held on February 4-5, the winning crews leave their own yachts and sail instead in RNZYS's trusty fleet of MRX one-design yachts.
With the teams now competing in identical boats, the racing is likely to be close and winning will depend largely on the skill of the skipper and crew.
Racing will consist of 10 windward, leeward sprints, followed by a harbour race. The winner will be decided on a points-based system and will then head to Dubai in April to compete in the BMW Sailing Cup International World Final.
This is the second time this international event has been staged and the first time New Zealand has hosted a national qualifying regatta.
In the first event, 1400 participating sailors competed in national regattas held in Spain, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Austria, Malta and Denmark. The inaugural final was held in Valencia before the Louis Vuitton Cup.
