NZ 49ERS WIN AT KIEL
Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn have won their first big international regatta together, taking out the 49er class at Kiel Week in Germany.
The pair, who have been sailing together for the last two years, picked up World Cup Series silver medals in Hyeres and Enoshima in 2018 and they also led at last year’s sailing world championships in Aarhus for a handful of days before eventually finishing seventh.
Their second in Kiel’s medal race was enough for them to finish ahead of Poland’s Lukasz Przybytek and Pawel Kolodzinski, with James Peters and Fynn Sterritt of Great Britain third.
Kiel Week is one of the world’s biggest regattas, featuring myriad classes, and over the nine days 4,000 sailors from 60 nations competed in more than 1,900 boats. The 49er fleet for the 125th edition of the regatta was particularly strong, making for very competitive racing.
ETNZ’S CHARITY
TNZ is to partner with the Motor Neurone Disease Association of New Zealand as the official charity of the Team for the 36th America’s Cup.
Motor Neurone Disease (MND) causes the muscles that enable us to move, speak, swallow and breathe to gradually stop working. New Zealand has the highest known rate of MND in the world, with an average of two people diagnosed each week and well over 300 people living with the condition.
ETNZ has first-hand experience witnessing the devastation of MND through team mate and current Director of America’s Cup Event Ltd (ACE), Greg Horton.
“Greg has been and continues to be an undeniable inspiration to the team while fighting MND,” says ETNZ CEO Grant Dalton.
“While the disease is having a devastating effect on him physically he has always remained so strong and optimistic despite his personal hardship. He contributed to our success in winning the Cup in Bermuda, and he still manages to undertake his vital role towards the planning for the 36th America’s Cup in 2021.”
Greg is also a member of the National Council of the not-for-profit charity MND New Zealand which supports people living with MND, their family and carers and health professionals to enable them to have the best possible quality of life.
MND New Zealand General Manager Carl Sunderland says it’s a huge honour to be the Official Charity of ETNZ.
“We rely almost completely on the generosity of the New Zealand community to continue to provide free, personalised support to people living with MND, their carers and families and this partnership will help raise awareness of this devastating disease and the vital work we do.”
To make a donation to MND New Zealand, visit www.mnd.org.nz
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FULLERS 360 REVIEW
The Hauraki Gulf’s largest ferry company has launched a review of its operations aimed at improving its service.
Fullers360 carries more than five million commuters and visitors every year around the Hauraki Gulf.
“Overall,” says CEO Mike Horne, “our customers tell us we’re doing a good job. But we’ve heard loud and strong that some of our customers are unhappy with our services and this really concerns us. We realise we could listen better, and we are committed to doing that.”
A review of the company’s operations is looking at current staffing levels, scheduling, talking with crews and prioritising better customer communication on the wharves – all of which underpin maintaining stringent safety procedures.
Immediate steps include:
Creating a community voice – an open forum to enable the community to influence and contribute to the running of local services is being established.
Transparency of services – the Fullers team works hard to maintain Waiheke’s high-performance standards, but it hasn’t been sharing this information as well as it could with the community. Fullers is committed to changing this.
Critical infrastructure – working with local government is vital. It owns and controls the infrastructure on which all ferry services operate. Fullers has a role as an influencer and its customers’ input is essential. Action is underway for an improved ferry network. Customers and stakeholders will receive progress updates.
Investment in the fleet – in addition to the established three-year investment programme, Fullers recently invested a further $13m in purchasing two vessels. These vessels will enter the Waiheke and Devonport routes from August 2019 and will provide flexibility and scale for both. The company has committed to the R&D of full electric carbon fibre ferries, designed and built in New Zealand, with the aim of introducing them by 2021.
BOI MARINA IS TOPS
The Bay of Islands has the best international marina in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the Marina Industries Association (MIA), the organisation representing the marina and related service industries in this part of the world.
Bay of Islands Marina in Opua won the award at the recent 2019/2020 Club Marine Marina of the Year Awards on Australia’s Gold Coast. This is the first time in the 17-year history of the event that a New Zealand marina has won the award.
Auckland’s Westhaven Marina and China’s Sanya Serenity Marina were on the shortlist, along with Bay of Islands Marina.
There are 10 categories in the Awards which are conducted every two years by the MIA. Entries are judged by members of the association’s executive board.
The judges were impressed by the demonstrably high level of service offered to customers, from arrival and Customs clearance through to the work conducted by the boatyard and the excellent marine service industry at Opua, all of which enhance the marina’s reputation as a favoured destination for yachties traversing the Pacific.
Far North Holdings general manager Chris Galbraith says the award is a vindication of the time, effort and attention to detail that has gone into the recent expansion work at the marina.
“All the way through we have looked at this project through as many lenses as possible and done whatever we could to ensure that the product lives up to the expectations of our customers, our service industry tenants, our staff, our communities here in the Bay of Islands and our shareholders – the ratepayers of the Far North in the form of our single owner, the Far North District Council.”
AUCKLAND DROPS PROPOSED ANCHOR FEE
Auckland Council has dropped a proposed daily anchoring fee which would have seen superyachts and other foreign-flagged vessels of over 40m billed each time they anchored within Auckland’s navigable waters.
“Working with Auckland Council, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron and Emirates Team New Zealand, we were able to help Council appreciate just how much of a deterrent a daily anchoring fee would have been to foreign vessels planning to visit our shores, particularly for the Prada and America’s Cup in 2020-21,” says Peter Busfield, executive director of NZ Marine.
NZ Marine is the country’s marine industry association and represents marine companies and their respective boatbuilders and apprentices.
Auckland Council has worked with the marine industry to overhaul the plan, settling on a new, low, visitor-friendly 12-month navigation and safety fee for vessels over 40m in length. The services covered by the fee include the Harbourmaster maintaining navigation aids and maritime safety functions, and helping masters of visiting yachts over 40m LOA to find suitable anchorages among the more than 50 islands in the Hauraki Gulf.
These vessels will be required to pay a one-off annual navigation and safety fee of $20 plus GST per metre of vessel under the new requirements.
“It’s great to continue presenting the welcoming and cohesive front for which New Zealand is well known to the international superyacht community,” says Busfield. “We are keeping the door open for superyacht visitors from around the globe who want to experience our beautiful part of the world.”
FOODSTUFFS TRAPS PLASTIC
Foodstuffs North Island has launched a new pilot programme to stop waste flowing to the sea.
Launched on World Oceans Day (8 June), the programme is a significant investment in rubbish traps for store-based stormwater drains. Eleven New World and PAK’nSAVE stores are installing 125 LittaTrap™ catchers from New Zealand company Stormwater360 – a move to stop toxic waste and plastic flowing through drains to waterways.
Mike Sammons, Sustainability Manager for Foodstuffs, says recent trials with single traps at New World Browns Bay and New World New Lynn in Auckland have demonstrated the efficacy of the system.
“We captured everything from organic leaf matter and cigarette butts to soft plastics, polystyrene beads and straws. If all storm drains at Browns Bay had a LittaTrap installed a total of 7,322 pieces of plastic and other litter could be caught over a 12-month period. Captured waste is carefully disposed of in landfill.”
In 2017, Foodstuffs removed all health and beauty products containing plastic microbeads and in 2018 stopped selling plastic cotton buds, plastic tampon applicators. It also stopped giving out singleuse plastic bags at checkout.
Further trials are currently underway to replace plastic produce bags and a new zero-packaging ‘refillery concept’ has been launched in New World stores in Long Bay, Auckland and Durham Street in Christchurch.
“Part of being a responsible retailer,” say Sammons, “is also looking beyond our own physical footprint and ensuring we’re not passing on a problem to the wider environment through land, sea or air pollution. Average store recycling rates are now at 85%, but some like New World Wellington City have reached 90% recycling, including donating the equivalent of 7,800 meals a month to the local community.
“Over the last few years we’ve worked hard to reduce our carbon footprint by moving to natural refrigeration and supporting the transition to electric vehicles. We currently have half of New Zealand’s EV fast chargers in our carparks, over 30 EVs on the road and we are building three electric lorries in Christchurch.”
LIFE MEMBERSHIP FOR BROOKE
Classic boat icon Robert Brooke has been awarded Life Membership of the Classic Yacht Association.
Brooke – a qualified boatbuilder – served his apprenticeship with Percy Vos. He has restored and built numerous traditional wooden boats and is known as a Logan restoration specialist.
He has also played a major role in education, pioneering the integration of the ‘Design-and-Build’ mode of teaching and learning into the national curriculum of Workshop Technology. Where students previously copied existing designs or components, under Design-and-Build they conceive the design and see it through to completion. This principle has become the mainstay of technology education and is flourishing under the NCEA environment.
Brooke was an advisor in technical subjects for the then Department of Education from 1987 to 1990 and was the National Moderator of the Northern Region appointed to assess National Standards. He has been National Examiner for Ship, Yacht and Boatbuilding and has been a member of the Ship, Yacht and Boatbuilding Advisory Committee for Unitec. He has moderated Ship, Yacht and Boatbuilding Trade and Advanced Trade examinations. He has been General Manager of the Boating Industry Training Organisation.
In May this year Brooke was awarded with the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education and heritage preservation.
AN ICON PASSES ON
One of New Zealand’s most prolific boat designers and builders – Bob Salthouse – died in June aged 83. He had been in poor health for some time.
Though the exact number is unclear, it’s estimated that in a career spanning more than half a century Bob designed over 750 boats – and impressively – most are still afloat. They covered the entire spectrum of vessels – yachts, launches, wooden boats, workboats charter boats and luxury pleasure boats.
They include the 32m alloy superyacht Pacific Mermaid and some of the most successful production designs New Zealand has seen – the Cavalier 32 and 39, both launched in the 1970s. Around 170 of the 32s were built and 84 of the 39s.
Equally successful was the Corsair range of 10.9m launches, with more than 150 produced in three models from 1973. One-off commissions included the famous game-fisher Te Ariki Nui in 1983 and the 27.4m Pacific Challenge for the America’s Cup in Fremantle in 1985.
Bob – together with brother John – began building boats in the early 1950s before Bob left to start up his own company, Salthouse Marine, in 1983.
Dean Salthouse is the youngest of Bob’s three sons and is the only one to follow in his dad’s footsteps, completing a boatbuilding apprenticeship. Dean founded Salthouse Next Generation Boats after he and his father successfully revamped the original Corsair design into a wider-bodied Cabriolet-styled motor yacht.
Bob’s brother John died earlier this year.
SITE 18 IS ALL GO!
Resource consent for Site 18 in Westhaven has now been granted and Orams Marine has scheduled building work to commence mid-year.
Site 18 will include an 820-tonne travel lift and will be ready to lift large vessels from the end of 2020.
This is a win for Orams Marine and the New Zealand marine industry, with economic benefits expected nationwide, says Peter Busfield, Chief Executive at NZ Marine.
NZ Marine congratulated Orams Marine, Panuku Development Auckland, Auckland Council and all those involved in progressing the Site 18 development.
Boat Show buzz
When this year’s Auckland On Water Boat Show opens on 3 October in the Viaduct Harbour, visitors can expect to experience a large number of sea trials and see a huge selection of boats on the water.
This year’s show – the 21st – will see a slight shift in location within its Viaduct Harbour home.
“On-land exhibitors will stretch out from Eastern Viaduct to Karanga Plaza,” says organiser Stacey Cook, “and making a return will be the exceptionally large number of on-water vessels available for viewing.
“It’s on the water that visitors can see and experience how a vessel moves and performs. It’s a crucial part of what we offer visitors and it allows boatbuilders and brokers to show their boats in their element.”
This year’s event will see a strong emphasis on boats available for sea trial – interested buyers will be able to get onboard and head out onto the Hauraki Gulf to experience vessels underway. This gives show visitors a unique way to discover new boatbuilders, and experience marine equipment like engines and navigation gear to help complete the decisionmaking process on a boat purchase.
With 2018 gate figures showing a 12% increase in visitor numbers, organisers are looking forward to seeing another strong show this year as an indicator of the health of the market.
“Our remit is to showcase the marine industry and help businesses flourish, so hearing from exhibitors that the market felt strong, and they received good quality enquiries at the 2018
show is exactly what we want,” says Cook.
It’s the country’s biggest on-water boat show and showcases more than 200 domestic and international marine businesses, including dozens of vessel manufacturers and boat brokers.
FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.AUCKLAND-BOATSHOW.COM
OBC SUPPORTS GULF PROTECTION
The Outboard Boating Club (OBC) – the country’s largest recreational boating club – has added its support to a proposal aimed at protecting at least 20% of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, a move which will hopefully reverse dwindling fish numbers.
The proposal comes from the Hauraki Gulf Forum, a statutory body which promotes and facilitates integrated management and the protection and enhancement of the Hauraki Gulf. It’s aimed at seeking protection of at least 20% of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park and establishing restoration efforts for 1000km2 of shellfish beds and reefs.
“As regular users of the gulf,” says OBC Commodore Bill Berry, “our 2000 members are well aware that the health of the Gulf is at risk and that more must be done to protect the environment of the gulf for our families and future generations. Consequently, we support this decision by the Hauraki Gulf Forum and look forward to working with them.
“Club members young and old have been enjoying the Gulf’s beauty and resources for 60 years, and as a significant step toward protecting the fish resource we have changed the basis for all our fishing competitions to measuring by length rather than weight.
“Measuring and photographing the fish encourages competitors to return the fish to the water, preserving the healthiest breeding fish of popular varieties as snapper, kahawai and kingfish.” For more information on the proposal, visit https://ourauckland. aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/articles/news/2019/05/hauraki-gulf-forumvotes-to-increase-marine-park-protection/
