The South Island Champs which were held at Wanaka 19-20 November turned out to be a bit of a North - South challenge with the arrival of 3 of our northern pilots to compete against the southern contingent.

The Melvin A2 was offered to Geoff Woolley some time ago as a carrot to entice him down to do some coaching with the local Opti and Starling kids, an opportunity he jumped at. In the meantime Dave Aarons arranged to sail Murray’s ASG3 as he is working in Christchurch at the moment and Pete Kerr had an untimely back injury which left an opening for Pat Ashby to fly down and sail the Mk4. Team south comprised of Murray sailing the DNA, John Kennett sailing ‘Wizard of OZ’ and myself sailing the Tool. Chris Riley, having finished the ski season in his inimitable style by flying off into the agriculture on Treble Cone’s closing day (“there was snow there when I went there the day before!!!”) and breaking his collar bone in 3 places, was still recovering so the Peter Lynn built ‘Prozac’ was left parked in the willow trees for the weekend.

Day 1 saw a light shifty 3-5 knots NW breeze which saw myself and Geoff battling it out for 1st over 4 races with a strong showing also from John Kennet with Murray not really firing with the DNA and uncharacteristically more often than not finding himself on the wrong side of the shifty breeze.

The breeze filled in on Sunday to a healthier 12-15 knots and Murray came to the fore with 3 bullets and a 2nd but not quite enough to hold out Geoff who hung in to take the title and prove his nationals debut in A-class at Kerikeri was more than just an idle flirtation. Pat got the measure of the Mk4 in the breeze with some impressive downwind performances and came through to take the Sedger Handicap Trophy.

It was great to see 2 PT’s from Christchurch turn up to contest the Southern Freshwater  champs. Dave Norris brought his new boat down to get it wet with James Cairns keeping him company. The honours were taken by James, beating Dave by 5 races to 3