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Preliminary Interest is invited from Vision Impaired Sailors, Sighted Tacticians and Sighted Crew to participate in training weekends and trials prior to the selection of a NZ sailing team to compete in the 2009 World Blind Sailing Championships to be held at Rotorua NZ March 2009. The team will consist of three
crews as follows: The selectors will reserve the right to mix or interchange crew personnel to ensure the strongest team in any division is selected. Sight Grading: Experience: Enquiries to: |
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Link to Full Results The result of the 2008 new Zealand Blind Sailing Championships remained open till the eighth and final race sailed in light conditions on lake Rotoiti on the weekend 17 and 18 May Swapping boats on rotation after each race the tight racing and close result confirmed the competitive evenness between boats and suitability of the one design Nolex 25 for the purpose. , Martyn Tasker and TV camera crew provided an early and effective distraction for celebrity helmpersons while he obtained promotional footage for the 2009 World Champs. On day one Paulien Eitjes with Gary Smith as tactician and Tom Donaghy on mainsheet, sat back in the pack and let the rest of a very competitive fleet fight over the top places. After four races top spot with two wins was B3 Eddie Moree with Shannon Leslie mainsheet and Tony Thompson tactician. Sharing a win each was B2 Dave Allerton with B1 Rob Aislabie on mainsheet and young Taranaki champ Starling skipper Paul Moriarty performing well as tactician, and Dick Lancaster now sailing as a B1 With B1 Russell Lowry from Palmerston North on mainsheet and Allan Civil from BOPTYS as tactician. With a four point spread and a wide open contest there was an excited let’s go racing atmosphere among the crews on Sunday morning. As the race boats slid back into the water with a white frost blanketing decks and sail-covers and a light breeze whispering amongst the ducks taking refuge in the bay, there was promise of another great day of racing. The Tauranga crew had talked over their troubles as they travelled, and Paulien proceeded to carve her way back up to the top of the points table by winning each of the four races, leaving the rest to fight for the minor places. An excellent recovery effort by Paulien and crew in the flukey conditions and four different boats but it was not all her own way. The light air provided plenty of passing opportunities that kept the fleet close and positions changing. Eddie and his very experienced BOPTYS crew applied an incessant close quarters attack in the final race but the champion Tauranga trio were solid on defence to confirm their overall win by two points. Despite the usual frustrations of light air lake sailing this was a very enjoyable and successful weekend of racing. The blind sailors are as always very grateful to BOPTYS and the assistance and support of so many sighted persons who committed to the success of the contest. Boat owners, boat owners reps who were also the fourth crewman, patrol boat crews, officer of the day Don McGowan and his committee boat crew, thank you all. This event also provided some insights into systems that may be used in the upcoming World Blind Sailing Championships to be held on Lake Rotorua next March. News media agents for that event, from the Waiariki Polytech, now have clips of the New Zealand Champs on U-tube. |
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At The recent Blind Sports Awards evenin held at Awhina House, Paulien was award B2 Sports Person of the year. Her performance was set out on the entry nomination as follows:- April 2007. Paulien defended for the third time the NZ Blind Sailing Championship overall title as well as the B2 Division Gold Medalist in the Homerus Blind Match Racing International regatta at Palmero, Italy, November 2007. Paulien traveled to Italy by herself. Seven Countries, Nine Teams. Paulien recorded No losses. Two new types of boat and a different style of sailing. Sailed with an Italian crew that she had never met! Sighted issues as well as languages issues!! The event is open to any vision impaired sailors with the skills to match race (same type of event as the Americas Cup). INTERNATIONAL NATIONAL During the year Paulien trained
by sailing her Starling with the Tauranga Yacht clubs sighted
fleet. A Starling is 2.6m long, weighs 41kg and is one of the
key training boats used in NZ sailing. The Tauranga fleet includes
national and provincial champions. Sailing in the Tauranga Regatta,
she finished ahead of several of the sighted competitors as well
as taking the time to deal with the "Campbell Live"
presenter and promoting sailing and Vision impaired sailing. |
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According to the broad smiles
and positive feedback from our new VIP sailors and new volunteer
sighted helpers, our ‘Taster’ Sailing School over the
weekend of 4th and 5th of November was a success. Dale now has three new members
to follow-up for Auckland. Thanks again for your contribution,
boats, time, effort, thoughts, publicity, and other useful input.
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A Homerus Press Release Light airs yet fast action on the final day of Blind Match Racing Championships The light conditions experienced throughout the regatta continued on the final day of racing at the Homerus Blind Match Racing Championships. On day 4 the committee continued to race competitors within their allotted round robin groups to be able to reach a semi final group. Storm cells hung low on the mountains threatening to delay proceedings as races were started in a light consistent 5 knot breeze from the North East. After three flights a semi final group emerged with matches to be raced between the winners of group 1 and 2, Luigi Bertanza (ITA) lined up against the young Etiam Israeli (ISR), and Paulien Eitjes (NZL) against Hurtado Roser (SPN). Bertanza ranked 1st had not lost a flight so far in the regatta, however the Israeli team had tactically outwitted his opponents in races so far. Paulien Eitjes (NZL) a new comer to match racing was ready to meet Roser (SPN) also new to the game. Light rain dotted the bay and the course was changed to face the South West before Bertanza (ITA) met Israeli (ISR). In 2 races Bertanza ‘Gigi’ (ITA) and Israeli (ISR) both had excellent boat handling in the light conditions, however Gigi had the tactical advantage, as he controlled his opponent from the right hand side of the course going up wind to finish ahead in both races. In the Semi finals between Eitjes (NZL) and Roser (SPN), Eitjes had the tactical advantages in both races and sailed a shorter course to finish ahead. |
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According to the broad smiles
and positive feedback from our new VIP sailors and new volunteer
sighted helpers, our ‘Taster’ Sailing School over the
weekend of 4th and 5th of November was a success. Dale now has three new members
to follow-up for Auckland. Thanks again for your contribution,
boats, time, effort, thoughts, publicity, and other useful input.
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The Coastal Classic is a race starting off Devonport Wharf in Auckland and finishing off Russell Wharf in the Bay of Islands. In total, it’s 120 nautical miles, typically gets between 220 and 250 entries and for a boat like Fun-n-Games can take from 12 to over 24 hours to complete. It’s New Zealand’s biggest coastal race and a good race is one of Kevin and my objectives with our new boat. It’s not quite the same as your average Wednesday evening race, which unless you have some repairs from a previous race or something, is pretty much turn up at the boat and race. For this race, safety category requirements have to be met, safety certificates done, handicapping certificates which include a lot of measurements recorded and a raft of other tasks such as planning the catering, accommodation, giving the boat and rig a thorough check and so forth. All and all, most people tend to be very busy for three or four weekends before the race doing all this type of thing. We ended up starting in reasonable position in a lightish sea breeze with 75 other boats, set up with a reaching gennaker before North Head and got to serious mistake #1, held off the gennaker hoist a little too long, and the gennaker decided it really didn’t want to fly after all, it would much prefer to have a go at swimming. Being a particularly contrary and stubborn sort of gennaker it took a little while to persuade it of the error of it’s way, but it did eventually come to see the merits of being above the boat instead of below it, not pretty though and exit a couple of hundred metres and our good position off the start line. Six hours later, off past Kawau and Cape Rodney we go, 25-35 miles along the course, not doing well enough to claim an honourable last, the wind bending around to stay dead downwind, Russell looking as distant as an honest politician and finally things begin to change a little. Gybing from starboard to port and 30 seconds later, gosh, we seem to be sailing the same course we were sailing before we gybed, hell, we can even sail where we actually want to go , and could that be the beginnings of a little more breeze? Yes indeed, and it even proved it was a little more than the Gods teasing us with a tiny taste of what could have been if only we prayed harder and ate our vegetables, a genuine honest to god building south wester. It’s amazing what a little breeze can do to change the mood on a boat, but hmmm, should we really be standing around here, smiling at having a breeze, congratulating ourselves on our tremendous good fortune, sorry, brilliant tactical prowess, for not having gone out east a third time to get hung out like all those guys out east, but really this does seem to be getting to be quite a little breeze, one might almost call it a wind, and that gennaker does seem to be developing a mind of it’s own again, deciding it knows more about where the boat should go than the helmsman and all, we were getting just a little bit out of control with a sail which is most of the size of a house in a very solid twenty knot breeze. So, pausing only to draw lots on who was actually going to take the thing down before it developed a taste for ‘real flying’ and put the screacher up, a gennaker designed for reaching in strong winds., Off we go with a kite peel, again, definitely not beautiful, but we didn’t seem to be doing overly worse than anyone else and we did seem to finish with as many crew as we started, all good things really, and whilst I won’t go into what went wrong, if anyone happened to notice a 20m gennaker sheet looking lonely and unloved somewhere a little past Sail Rock, we’d quite like it back, because if you’re going to run a gennaker, it’s really better to have two sheets, fortunately for us, gybing was not in big demand for the remainder of the race so we got away with only one sheet on the gennaker. For the next few hours, much fun and only a few games was had by all on board, the boat is superb in stronger wind, surfing on the waves, and plenty of 12- 15kts on the gps, maybe 20-25 knot wind, lots of water everywhere and we’re probably actually starting to do okay, definitely much closer to what I read in the brochures. This is quite an experience, it takes absolute concentration all the time from the helmsman (well done Terry and Kevin), the mainsheet is being ‘pumped’ all the time to aid surfing (my shoulders are still feeling it) and every couple of minutes the boat goes into the back of a wave and a foot or more of water comes washing down the deck pretty much drowning everyone. The surfing is exhilarating and we’re going past a good few boats like they’re standing still. So, after a gennaker change off Tutu Kaka and yet another gennaker drop at about 1:30am off Cape Brett, it’s off to the finish at Russell with an extremely pleasant up wind sail in a light breeze, well extremely pleasant if you’re an Eskimo, for everyone else, it was an extremely pleasant but very cold sail up to Russell. For the last mile I was, as you can imagine, delighted to discover the gods had not forgotten us, they looked down upon us and said unto themselves, those boys on FnG do seem to be enjoying their sail, why not leave them out there a while longer, let’s take away the breeze? This I understand is another ‘feature’ of the coastal, we’re not complaining of course because we did seem to gain a few of places going in and it does seem to be a punishment dished out indiscriminately, but someone should really be suggesting a couple of edits for those brochure writers. So, that pretty much ended our
coastal, a pretty quiet night in a pretty wet boat. All in all,
probably average points for us, Reasonable for parts of the race
but undone by other parts. Some good memories to take away though,
I’m working hard on forgetting the bad bits. Overall just
over 17 hours, around 80th over the line and 60th on handicap,
not too bad from 230 entries, but again like most boats, we look
back and say “if only ...”, we could have done really
well. |
| At the General Meeting of Blind Sailing International
held In Newport Rhode Island during the World regatta, Blind
Sailing New Zealand was awarded the honour of organising the
next World Blind Sailing Championships. A professional bid supported by a glossy resume handout for each team and a slick DVD presentation convinced the meeting and by a unanimous vote accepted the bid. The regatta will sailed on Lake Rotorua and will be hosted by The Bay of Plenty Trailer Yacht Squadron. during February 2009. Sponsorship is already being sought and support from the Rotorua City Council Events Committee has already been obtained. |
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A Paper by the inaugural chairman of Blind Sailing International Mr. Colin Spanake (New Zealand) setting out the direction of Blind Sailing as a "sport under it's own rules." This paper was delivered at the formation of Blind Sailing International at the second World Blind Sailing Championship Regatta at Fremantle Australia, January 1997.
1. International Blind Sports Association conducts International
competitions for the blind three separate groups, viz. B 1, B2,
B3, thus permitting fair competition for those with differing
degrees of vision impairment. Blind Sailing International seeks
to continue this practice.
2. The development of recreation and sport sailing for blind and
vision impaired athletes stemmed from the emerging recognition
that far from being disabled, this section of the community had
the same potential for developing the skills and enjoying the
sport as any sighted person. There are some activities, in particular
those where the spheres of operation are predictable, in which
the blind can perform unaided. But in sailing, where international
laws require the maintenance of a proper look-out at all times,
a sighted helper is required, in the boat, or else in continuous
close proximity. Despite this, many blind are physically, capable
of performing all tasks relative to sailing that a sighted, able
bodied person can. They are not physically disabled. They, are
generally mobile.
3. At the inaugural meeting of Blind Sailing International in
Perth in 1994, experience in the First International Blind Sailing
Regatta in Auckland and experience in racing generally resulted
in the unequivocal decision of all the delegates, even those who
were currently working with their local Sailability, that the
blind wished to develop their sport as an integrated blind/sighted
cooperative effort, recognising that safety factors dictate the
presence of sighted sailors. The Second International at Fremantle
sailed in tougher conditions hardened this attitude A ratio of
one-to-one of sighted to blind on a boat was recognised as the
optimum. The soundness of this requirement was amply demonstrated
at Fremantle when the sighted tactician on a boat on its way to
the start line became incapacitated while the yacht was sailing
to windward in 20 knot winds in open waters. The sighted crew
took over the helm, organised the blind crew and returned the
engineless yacht safely to the marina.
4. There was no wish at this Perth
meeting to ignore International Foundation for Disabled Sailing,
or to dissociate from that body. Rather, there was a desire that
the WDS and IYRU recognise that the blind had special needs which
could best be met by a regulatory body representative of the blind
sailors and dedicated to the special and unique skills of the
blind. There was expressed the hope that IYRU would ultimately
accept BSI as its regulatory body, either directly or through
IFDS.
5. One of the goals of teaching sailing for the Blind is to enable
them to take a part in the recreation or sport of sailing, as
an active, fully integrated member with the sighted participants.
Experience during the last 20 years of racing and cruising sailing
has shown that such integration can be achieved without detriment
to sighted sailors success rate. There are examples of blind sailors
in NZ and no doubt elsewhere in the world, helming and crewing
and winning competitions in open company. The separation of the
blind from the able bodied, sighted world which. occurs in the
IFDS handicap system is regarded as not in keeping with the goal
of Integration.
6. Sighted crews sailing at all levels from normal day sailing
for fun to the Americas Cup and Admirals Cup contests, develop
sophisticated levels of communication. The navigator and tactician
feed information to the Helmsperson, even the advice to "tack
now" or---gybe now trimmers may indicate the necessity for
changes and advise the helm of the need to do so, foredeck hands
may call "Hoist" or "drop" or "ease now".
Very often no words are needed, the commencement of an action
by one member triggers off actions by others. It can be no less
so with a blind and sighted crew. It may even require more skill
in that the lack of sight requires greater sensitivity in senses
other than sight. The development and maintenance of that particular
skill is a high priority for blind sailors, not only between sighted
and blind, but also between blind sailors themselves.. There is
no suggestion that those skids are not present in physically disabled
sailors.
7. The development of electronic devices such as the audible compass,
and the linking of normal navigation instruments to voice synthesisers
are developments which have lessened the effect of loss of sight.
Their availability together with others to come, will lead to
the goal of having a blind crew which will require only a sighted
lookout and an emergency sighted crew in a five-man boat.
8. All these factors make blind sailors reluctant to accept in
international competition the limitations of a handicap system
such as that established by the IFDS which, admirable though it
may be in equalising the abilities of physically disabled sailors,
inevitably relates the blind to being 'pullers of sheets'. In
discussions on the IFDS system, the blind recognise that if the
goal is to win an International title, it would be highly unlikely
that a Blind Helmsperson would be chosen. The blind may be in
demand as crew. Some are very skilled at foredeck work and race
regularly in two-man open company races, but nevertheless want
the regular opportunity to excel at all the tasks required in
a racing yacht.
In summary then, Blind sailors wish to compete under the three
group classification system established by the IBSA, each group
having its own competition. Blind sailors are generally able bodied
and mobile and are physically capable of performing swiftly at
a high level of skill all tasks require to race a boat.
Safety considerations require able bodied sighted tacticians and
crew on a one-to-one basis on each boat competing except in special
circumstances. There is no wish to dissociate frorn IYRU or IFDS.
The special abilities and needs of the blind are best
served by a regulatory body which can work either directly with
IYRU or through IFDS. Integration of blind sailors into sighted
sport is well established. The blind feel that separation from
the general sporting world, is not desirable. Special skills of
communication which are not readily analysed develop between blind
and sighted crew and between blind crew themselves. The speed
of response is notable.
The IFDS handicap system would limit the numbers of otherwise
capable blind sailors who would get the chance to compete at international
level. The lack of sight would inevitably relegate them to sheet
handlers. Development of electronic aids opens up a new potential
in blind sailing. Blind sailors wish to pursue
this potential in inter-national competition.
Colin Spanhake
Chairman Blind Sailing International
11 July 1996
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