Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Picton to host national sailing champs
Picton harbour will be filled with small sails this Easter, with the country’s best beginner sailors vying for a place on the world stage.
The Marlborough Sounds has been the venue of the New Zealand International Optimist Dinghy Association (NZIODA) Optimist Nationals only twice before, the first time being in 2003.
That edition was won by a young Peter Burling, the skipper of Team New Zealand’s 2021 America’s Cup winning crew.
“That was his first New Zealand championship that he ever won, and now look where he is,” said Queen Charlotte Yacht Club commodore Rob Burn.
Last hosted by the club in 2018, junior sailors from around the motu will once again descend on Picton from March 28-31 for this this year’s nationals. hoping to mark their mark.
Burn said around 200 competitors were expected.
“We’re enthusiastic about the sport and about holding the national champs here again,” he said.
“The good thing about Queen Charlotte Yacht Club, is that we have the wharf right around the building, so it’s like stadium sailing ... you can sit there and you can watch the kids on the start line, and you’ve got such a great view.”
The club’s biggest event on its 2024 calendar “by miles,” Burn said the Interislander Optimist Challenge and
Port Marlborough Starling Champs in February helped them to prepare.
“It let a lot of our newer volunteers cut their teeth on a big regatta,” he said.
Aged up to 15 years old, optimist sailors heading to nationals would be vying for a place at the World Championship, and Burn that said there would be a sizeable local contingent at the event.
“Queen Charlotte arguably has one of the highest retentions of sailors in the country, and we’ve got a really healthy fleet,” he said.
Most of those local entrants had been taught to sail by Queen Charlotte Yacht Club head coach Kate Overend, who said the event would be a “really cool opportunity” for her students to sail competitively on home waters.
“It’s a pretty awesome experience. I think the youngest of our guys would be 9, and the oldest being 14 that will be entering in this, so for a 9-year-old kid to go out sailing for four days, that’s a pretty big achievement,” Overend said.
“At the end of the day, they’re in control of everything for themselves, which I think is a pretty cool, independent thing for them to learn.”
Overend said some of the entrants participating in their first ever optimist nationals had only learned to sail a dinghy in January.
“It never ceases to amaze me how quickly they pick stuff up, like when we run Learn to Sail, within three days, the kids can sail a boat,” she said.
Volunteers including parents, parents of past sailors and friends of the club are among those who have chosen to spend the Easter break giving the club a hand at the upcoming regatta.
“There’s a lot of people who have put a lot of time and effort into these kids to hopefully give them a solid foundation to give it their best shot,” Overend said.