Article as Submitted to Sailing New Zealand - March 2000

Vallings and Hey Unstoppable in Javelin Titles
Alex Vallings, sailing with Hamish Hey were victorious at the recent Ports of Otago Sanders Cup interprovincial competition, and in the subsequent Portsider Tavern/Speights Javelin Nationals. After comfortably winning the first ever Sanders Cup title for King Country, Vallings and Hey became unstoppable and took the National title winning all 6 races, along with the Kingham Trophy invitation race for the Sanders Cup.

Vallings stepped out of his 12ft skiff, after finishing second at the recent Interdominions, to skipper long time Javelin campaigner Hey's Freckle Deckle. Hey's regular skipper was unable to make the journey south due to work commitments.

Runners up in both title's was Javelin legend Bob Vernon and crew Brad Webb sailing Blunderbus. Vernon is a past winner of the Javelin Nationals, and four time winner of the Sanders Cup. Brad Webb was bowman in Dawn Riley's America True campaign, and also sailed on Chris Dickson's Tag Heur in the previous America's Cup. Brad's return to Javelins after two America's Cup campaigns saw him become a local celebrity. After interviews on local TV he joined the lucrative "intermediate school speaking circuit" introducing over 800 excited students to the sport of yachting.

2000 Ports of Otago Sanders Memorial Cup
The 76th Interprovincial Sanders Cup competition was hosted by the Port Chalmers Yacht Club in Otago Harbour. A fitting venue, given that the first Sanders Cup, in March 24th 1921, was won by Otago's Heather.

Originally raced in the 14ft X-Class, the competition has been
competed for in Javelins since 1971. Past winners of the Sanders Cup have included Murray Ross, Graham and Peter Mander, Jack Cropp (1956 Olympic champion), Peter Newland (World Contender champion), Don Lidguard and Phil McNeil (World Cherub champion). The Sanders Cup holds a unique place in New Zealand's yachting history, as the only senior interprovincial trophy raced for today.

Vallings and Hey stamped their mark on the Sanders from race one in the northerly sea breeze as their superior height and boat speed to windward gave them a handy lead around the course. However, they were vulnerable down wind, the Auckland crew of Pete Precey and Stu McLachlan in www.javelins.org passed them on the final leg to win by a margin of only 12 seconds.

After making an adjustment to the set up of the gennaker on Freckle Deckle Vallings and Hey reversed this weakness to a strength and consistently sailed lower angles with good speed for the rest of the contest often extending their lead by good margins. They convincingly won the following 4 heats for a near unassailable lead going into the last day's racing. Behind the spotted white hull was the ever-consistent North Harbour campaigner Blunderbus sailed by Bob Vernon and Brad Webb. Like Freckle Deckle they were impressive to windward but had their problems down wind and had a real battle with the Auckland downhill flyers on www.javelins.org for second place overall. The bunch behind had some incredibly close racing with placings changing throughout each race and finishing margins between boats of just a few seconds keeping the race officials on their toes and providing an excellent spectacle for the fleet of spectator craft watching the event.

The final race (able to be sailed) was a light and shifty with a south easterly coming over the hill of Portobellow Bay. The older aluminium rigs excelled in these conditions, and the regular order of placing was turned on its head. P-Class helmsman Alex Hinton and Graham Roberts in Desperado sailing for Bay of Plenty showed the fleet a clean pair of heels winning by over a minute. The Taranaki crew of David and Wayne Brown sailing Zenith came home second ahead of Otago's Murray Bain and Neil Morris in Coup d'etat in third place.

An accident on the boat ramp after the final race of the Sanders Cup resulted in Graham Roberts, the crew of Desperado, undergoing emergency surgery on his foot and lying out the rest of the regatta. Roberts skipper, Hinton finished the regatta with a substitute crew.

2000 Portsider Tavern / Speights National Javelin Championships
A southerly change of 50-60 knots saw the first scheduled day of the Nationals replaced with an educational tour of James Speights famous brewery.

Overnight, the wind moderated with Race 1 starting in 18-20 knots, gusting to 30 from the south. In the flat water of the confined lower harbour the racing was fast and furious, with Night Nurse, Rob Fordyce and Grant Macduff, trading the lead with Freckle Deckle throughout the race, finally losing the lead completely on the last leg after spectacularly capsizing.

Race 2 started with Vernon's Blunderbus leading to the top mark. Good downwind speed on Freckle Deckle on the first run gave Vallings back the lead and set the pattern for the rest of the regatta.

Race 3 saw Vallings and Hey clear out again with Night Nurse attaining second from www.javelins.org and Blunderbus.

Races 4-6 were sailed in 8-12 knots northerlies. Although the overall lead was never in question, the fight for the next four places was always up for grabs. Extremely tight racing had the middle of the fleet finishing within 2-3 minutes of each other, with 2nd to 4th placings often finishing only a few boatlengths apart.

The last day saw a lack of wind with only one race being sailed. The wind swung the compass with the race being finished but was later annulled following protests.

Freckle Deckle clearly won the Javelin Skiff national championships with 6 straight wins, adding to the Sanders Cup Interprovincial title the pair won for King Country the previous week. These titles round off a successful year for skipper Vallings.

Class Developments
Freckle Deckle is a new foam/glass/carbon hull, with a carbon rig designed and built by Vallings company "C-Tech", and sails by skiff guru Ken Fyfe. This rig exemplifies the current trend in Javelins, which has rigs using lowers to the spreader base in an effort to tighten the lower leech, and lock the shape in the lower half of the sail. A more complex rigging arrangement was used on Pete Precey's www.javelins.org, which added diamonds in an effort to support the topmast sideways.

The win by a boat with a carbon mast, was the first in a Javelin contest, with the top three boats all using C-Tech carbon rigs. Although carbon rigs have been used for 7 years in Javelins well-tuned aluminium rigs have always proved dominant, the first alloy rig this year was the DrainSpar 200 on Night Nurse in fourth place.

With the introduction of gennakers last year, most crews still prefer Fyfe sails, with only two boats using gennakers from Doyle's. In mainsails, there was a bigger variety with the Fyfe, Doyle and North One Design sails respectively used by the top three boats.

A new hull design is being developed, this hull will be finer and narrow than the current hulls in an effort to take full advantage of the introduction of gennakers. It is anticipated that four new hulls will be built over winter for the upcoming South Pacific Contest in Wellington this Christmas. A fleet of around 35 boats is expected for this hard fought competition, with New Zealand keen to regain the title after the last two victories by Australia's Peter Layton.

For more information, check out the Javelin Associations web site www.javelins.org, or contact Dave Tyrer 04 568 6030, or Rob Fordyce 09 444 6874

Results - Ports of Otago Sanders Memorial Cup
1st King Country - Freckle Deckle 3pts Alex Vallings / Hamish Hey
2nd North Harbour - Blunderbus 22.7pts Bob Vernon / Brad Webb
3rd Auckland - www.javelins.org 31.1pts Peter Precey / Stuart McLachlan
4th Bay of Plenty - Desperado 38.7pts Alex Hinton / Graham Roberts
5th Hawkes Bay - Thirty Something 39.7pts Paul Temple / Colin Shanks
6th Taranaki - Zenith 46.7pts David Brown / Wayne Brown
7th Otago - Coup d'etat 49.1pts Murray Bain / Neil Morris
8th Wellington - Psycho 60.7pts Peter Holt / Steve Holt

Portsider Tavern / Speights Javelin Skiff Nationals
1st Freckle Deckle 0pts Alex Vallings / Hamish Hey
2nd Blunderbus 22.7pts Bob Vernon / Brad Webb
3rd www.javelins.org 25.4pts Peter Precey / Stuart McLachlan
4th Night Nurse 38.4pts Rob Fordyce / Grant Macduff
5th Coup d'etat 39.4pts Murray Bain / Neil Morris
6th Psycho 54pts Peter Holt / Steve Holt
7th Zenith 63.4pts David Brown / Wayne Brown
8th Rapscallion 70pts Graeme Wall / Manu Douglas
9th Just Perfick 74pts Wes Cooper / Perry Allen
10th Desperado 77pts Alex Hinton / John Wilson