Bay of Islands Race Week boasts to be New Zealand’s best big boat regatta, and this week it certainly was, with Doyle Sails New Zealand customers taking out podium places across the big boat divisions.
The regatta is situated in the stunning Bay of Islands in Northland, in some of the most picturesque sailing waters, and a great beach party, its easy to see why the sailors love it.
This year 100 yachts and their crews had the wind gods played on side and three days of racing in 5-15knots of breeze saw all divisions get their racing underway each day.
B division raced predominately windward leeward courses, Howard Spencer’s Melges 40 “Menace” claiming the Line Honours, and Matt Cole’s Ker 40 “Zephyrus” taking the PHRF win, sailing with his regular crew including Doyle Sails Harri Wren on bow.
“It has been an amazing week of racing in the Bay.” said Cole “Great to come away with the win in what has been a challenging season for us so far. The team did an excellent job setting up the boat, getting the sails tuned and fast, our new HYBRID J2 was the sail of the regatta gave us power in all conditions that often changed throughout the day.”
The Island Racing divisions proved most popular this year in terms of entries, Doyle-powered “Wired” taking home the silverware in A Division, Rob Bassett and his team on the claimed both 1st in PHRF and 2nd on line. Sailing with their new Doyle Sails A1.5 this week, Harry Dodson’s TP52 “Mayhem” claiming overall Line Honours and 2nd on PHRF
In the competitive one design Young 88 fleet it was Doyle-powered “Dangerzone” skippered by Harry Thurston from Akaroa who took first overall, with Simon Grosser’s Doyle-powered Jamiroquai in second on line.
In the Sports boat division it was Brent Gribble’s Doyle-powered “Magic Dragon” who claimed 2nd in on EHC while Matt Gottard’s “Daisy Duke” took 2nd on line.
Full regatta results can be found here //
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