Trophy treble for sailors
Silverware swoop includes century-old sailing trophy
Northland sailors Phil McNeill and Hamish Hey won the treble on the water off Gisborne last weekend.
They won the Kingham Trophy contested in the first race of the 2024 Sunshine Brewery Sanders Cup series and then proceeded to win the Sanders Cup and the Javelin-class national championship.
This was the 100th edition of the Sanders Cup, the oldest sailing trophy still contested in New Zealand. It has been sailed every year since 1921, except for 1942-45. Since 1971, it has been a contest for Javelin-class yachts.
Gisborne father and son Colin and Ross Shanks were defending champions.
Conditions were testing for the Kingham Trophy race on Anzac Day. Some boats with broken gear had to pull out and only three of the eight competing yachts completed the course without capsizing.
In the second race of the first day, Auckland sailors Craig Gilberd and Rob Fordyce were going so fast that their rudder parted company with the boat. This mishap ended their Sanders Cup challenge. They had finished second to McNeill and Hey in the Kingham Trophy race after being last at one stage.
McNeill and Hey had four wins in the nine-race series for the nationals, one second placing, one third, two fourths and a fifth. In each race, competitors recorded points that reflected their placing: third was worth three points, fourth four and so on. They then dropped their worst finish and the remaining total was their score.
McNeill and Hey had a net score of 17, one better than second-placed Manawatu¯ pair David Brown and David Feek, on 18.
Ross and Colin Shanks (East Coast) were third, with a net score of 23.
Other scores: Wade McGee and Demian Dixon (Wellington), 26; Peter Precey and Alex Edwards (North Harbour), 41; Antje Muller and Fi Charman (Bay of Plenty), 50; Bill Frater and Gordon Collister (South Canterbury), 59; and Craig Gilberd and Rob Fordyce (Auckland), 65.
Frater and Collister were the only South Island entry and hail from the Timaru Yacht Club, which in 1951 donated the Kingham Trophy for small-boat competition. They are regarded as legends in the sport, with a reputed combined age of 142.
Competitors had to contend with 25-knot (46km/h) winds on the first day. That night, two of the carbonfibre masts were being ground and re-carboned at the yacht club headquarters on Kaiti Beach.
“The grinding was done outside and the masts were brought inside and cardboard boxes laid down and air-conditioning put on to let them cure overnight,” said Gisborne Yacht Club member Peter Millar.
On the second day, the wind gusted up to 28 knots ( 52km/h), which produced some “on-the-edge high speed”, said Millar, who was on one of the rescue boats with daughter Lucy, while son Jake was on the other with John Wells.
Regatta organisers had planned to run four races on the second day but reduced it to three because crews were so exhausted trying to control their yachts in the strong winds.
The conditions favoured boats with heavier crews, Millar said. He jumped on board one boat to help the crew sail it to safety. Daughter Lucy skippered the RIB (rigid inflatable boat) to shallow water, her father jumped back into the boat and they returned to the course.
Conditions were more manageable on Saturday for the remaining four races.
On Thursday, Commander Yvonne Gray, of HMNZS Manawanui, presented the Kingham Trophy to McNeill and Hey and the Sanders Cup to Gisborne Yacht Club commodore Colin Shanks, in recognition of the naval link to the man after whom it was named, Lieutenant Commander William Sanders, from Auckland’s North Shore.
Sanders, the only New Zealander to win the Victoria Cross for a naval action, received the award for his actions in command of a Q-ship in World War I. Q-ships were decoy vessels that displayed false colours to lure German submarines within range of their guns. Many were sailing boats, so officers such as Sanders — with experience in sail — were in demand.
On April 30, 1917, Sanders was in command of the Prize, a topsail schooner, when the crew came across a U-boat, U-93, off Ireland.
During 25 minutes of intense shelling, the Prize waited for the submarine to close. Sanders remained calm, crawling along the ship to reassure the crew, who then fired on the submarine, destroying its conning tower, and it was last seen on fire and sinking.
Sanders was awarded the VC and promoted to lieutenant commander.
It was later revealed that U-93 was brought under control by its surviving crew and returned to Germany. Information about the Prize and its tactics was passed on to other U-boats and, on August 14 off the Irish coast, U-48 torpedoed the ship with the loss of Sanders and all his men.
It had been intended that the crew of the Manawanui would be in Gisborne, its home port, for Anzac Day but “operational changes” prevented it. However, Gray made the trip to be guest speaker at the dawn service and to present the trophies at the yacht club.
In recognition of her visit, she was given a model of the Manawanui, carved from macrocarpa by Peter Millar.
Millar also carved a representation of the Javelin skiff insignia in mahogany, with the word “LIFE” laid on in rewarewa, for Craig Gilberd, newly inducted life member of the Javelin-Class Owners Association.
In a nod to history, the Sanders Cup was presented to this year’s winners by Gisborne woman Colleen McCulloch. Her grandfather, Bill McCulloch, sailing for Otago, skippered the yacht Heather in the first two races of the first Sanders Cup series. Otago had challenged Auckland to a series contested in 14ft X-class yachts.
Jewellery firm Walker & Hall donated a 50-guinea trophy, which was named the Sanders Memorial Cup, and the five-race series was held on Waitemata¯ Harbour over Easter 1921. Governor-General Lord Jellicoe represented Auckland on his yacht Iron Duke.
George Wiseman was skipper of Heather when Otago clinched overall victory in the fifth race, but the name inscribed on the cup was that of the original skipper, McCulloch.