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.
SMALL BOAT, BIG RECORD
Kuczynski, who departed from Plymouth in the UK in August last year, spent 270 days, 10 hours and 29 minutes, covering nearly 29,000 nautical miles, living in a space of only 4m2. He took the classic route round the three capes at the southern ends of Africa, Australia and South America.
The intrepid sailor self-funded the voyage and, by departing from and returning to Plymouth, followed in the footsteps of many legendary seafarers who set sail from the city to circumnavigate the globe, including Sir Francis Chichester and Sir Francis Drake.
Some 300 people have sailed singlehanded around the world but only 80 sailors have achieved this solo and unaided.
DICKSON DOUBLE IN TASMAN CHALLENGE
“I was pretty pleased to beat him,” said Hamish. “He’s a very good sailor.” Malcolm crossed the line 12 hours later in Sarau. “It’s good to be beaten by your son in a boat you designed-and-built yourself,” he smiled.
The two led the six-boat fleet that started from New Plymouth on 1 April for the 13th singlehanded trans-Tasman yacht race between New Plymouth and Mooloolaba, Queenland. The 1300nm race has been held every four years since 1970. It is the second longest, continually competed singlehanded ocean race in the world (after the OSTAR) and the only one of its kind in the southern hemisphere.
Bad weather prevented five Australian entrants for this year’s race from sailing across for the start but, in the event, the race developed into a bit of a light air drifter with tail-ended Graeme Francis in Robbery taking 17 days to make the crossing, a week behind the first yachts.
Malcolm sailed the 1978 solo Tasman race and tussled with David How in Ocean Gem, a Beneteau 445, for second place, swapping positions several times.
Diehard Aussie, Kevin le Poidevin, sailed the same Sigma 36 Rogue Wave, which he skippered in the 2014 event and kept close cover on Wellingtonian Geoff Thorn in his Bavaria 38 Am Meer.
The 1986 race record set by Ian Johnstone sailing the trimaran Bullfrog Sunblock was six days, eight hours and 50 mins which was only just eclipsed in 2014 by Austrian circumnavigator, Reini Gelder. He completed the course in six days, seven hours and 13 mins in Ave Gitana – a Lock Crowther-designed sistership of the previous record holder.
