Lease Starlings will continue to be available for the 2012 –13 season. Support for the scheme has meant demand exceeded supply for the past season but hopefully the availability of a extra boats will help the situation for next year. The leases cost range from $500 - $1500 + gst  per year, depending on boat age. Cheaper boats are the Sail One first generation GRP Starlings and the more expensive leases are new or near new MacKay Starlings. Since sails are the ‘high wear’ item from race usage, these are not included in the lease. From time to time boats may even be available for specific regattas at $100 + gst per day.

Leasing a new boat could be attractive in the following circumstances:-

1. A MacKay Starling would be attractive for any sailor anticipating a short duration in the class, but wanting the very best in equipment without the financial outlay and resale issues of a new boat.
2. Sailors competing in a number of classes who may not have the resources to own all of the boats they sail.
3. Leasing an older boat is an opportunity to trial a Starling before having to visit the second hand market for an upgrade.

For sailors or families anticipating remaining in the class for more that two seasons, boat purchase remains the recommended cost efficient path to Starling competition. For further information contact Brian Peet, 09 520 3618 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This is the first Starling News since the nationals and I apologise for the delay. I am currently in the UK on holiday and there has been a lot going on.

Firstly congratulations to our new National Champion Erica Dawson. It is wonderful news for the class that both the Match racing (Alice Noyer) and National champions are for the first time female sailors. I would also like to congratulate Matthew Hughes who is the winner of the Traveller series. We must also congratulate Murrays Bay SC who, with many of their members away at the Opti Nationals, laid on a memorable Nationals as well as almost perfect weather..

We now begin to look forward to next season. Your SCA committee is working on selecting a venue for the 2013 nationals which will be in the April School holidays and timing for the North Island champs which will be at Muritai SC in Wellington.. We expect to have an announcement on those before the end of May.

For those who didnt make it to the SCA AGM the remit aimed at introducing the carbon masts to mainstream competition did not reach the 66% vote we were looking for. There were a range of opinions from "the time has come to step up" to "it will ruin the class" and everything in between. It seems there is much work to be done here. The meeting had plenty of mast makers at it and it will be interesting to see if any of them can come up with a package which can achieve the vote of approval.

The remit which did receive unanimous approval was to ask Glendowie BC to carry out a poll to change the voting base from registered owners to members of the Starling Class Association. The main reason for this is that SCA members will be current users of the Starling instead of including owners of boats which are tucked away in the basement. The remit also sought to introduce voting electronically which is much simpler and cheaper than posting letters.

Informal votes, which are not binding but which should guide the committee were in favour of a South Island venue for the 2013 nationals and in favour of introducing a class rule similar to that of the 420, 470 and Finn classes amongst others which permits pumping rocking and ooching over a certain wind strength. Members were read an email from Ian Neely who feels that Rule 42 is inhibiting sailors trying to learn legal downwind techniques for sailing fast. Ian stresses that pumping ooching and rocking themselves do not make a boat go faster but fear of being penalised for an improper action restricts development of techniques which will. The committee will be working towards establishing what wind speed this should cut in at and developing a class rule to make it work. 

Once dates and venues for the events mentioned above are sorted we can then put into place a full programme for the Northern Traveller series  and I am advised a Southern Traveller series is also being formed.

Thats all for now

Regards

Richard Brown from a chilly UK

The Starling North Island Champs were held at Maraetai Sailing Club over the Auckland Anniversary Weekend. The results are available on the following links:

2012 North Island Championship

2012 Anniversary Regatta - Maraetai Starling

The 2012 North Sails Starling Match Racing Championship was completed at Murrays Bay over Jan 10-13. Twelve contestants representing regions within New Zealand sailed two round robins comprising 132 races over two days.  In the event’s 21 year history, this was the first time the championship was won by a female sailor. Seventeen year old Alice Noyer representing Northland was the clear leader with 20 wins from 22 races.  Second was Sam MacKay (East Coast NI) and third William Linkhorn (Auckland). Both were tied on 18 wins but between them, Sam won both their matches so on count back took second placing.

Other placings:

4^th Matthew Hughes             (North Harbour)

5^th Charlotte Corston           (Christchurch)

6^th Jordelle Simkin               (Taranaki)

7^th Liam Foley Logan           (Nelson)

8^th Zak Merton                       (Bay of Plenty)

9^th Callum Pritchard              (Wellington)

10^th Sam Ruston                   (Sth Canterbury)

11^th William Bennett             (Otago)

12^th Emma Thomas              (Wanganui / Manawatu)

In another first, the regatta was sailed in identical boats supplied by the Starling Class Association. Six fibre-glass hulls were fitted with identical Southern Spars carbon masts, new North sails and new MacKay foils thus providing the perfect match racing equipment platform for the regatta. The competitors benefited from having boats with identical boat speed, a feature absent from all previous Starling Match Racing regattas. For the out of town entrants, travel times, attendance costs and participation complexities were greatly reduced with the provided boat feature. 

The Umpires, without whom the contest couldn’t function were Mike Alison, Don le Page, Vince Newbold and Melinda Henshaw.

See further images in the Photos link to the left.