Seawind Racing at Onepoto Basin

Here is a direct link to the video.

Sky Country TV - NZRYS 2026 Back in early March, Sky Country TV visited NZRYS at Onepoto to fil...

Back in early March, Sky Country TV visited us at Onepoto to film a documentary about our club. The program was produced as a short feature to be aired on their Sky Country channel, screening several times each week between regularly scheduled shows.
I have just received the finished video and thought I would share it for everyone to enjoy.
Sky Country TV has advised that they captured a considerable amount of footage during the shoot and will soon be producing additional versions to air as well.
Hopefully these short documentaries will help raise the profile of the NZRYS club at Onepoto and assist in attracting new members to the sport.
A big thank you to Sky Country TV for the opportunity and the exposure!

I have added a link to the video on our website.
https://www.nzrys.org/video

Despite the weather forecast looking far from ideal for sailing, conditions at Onepoto Lagoon turned out to be surprisingly good today for the five skippers who made it along for the fun sailing session. A reasonable SSW breeze, along with the usual lulls and shifts, provided some excellent racing conditions and although we had a couple of brief light showers, everyone was well prepared with wet weather gear so it was hardly an issue.

Dan’s 674 boat unfortunately suffered more gremlins with its sail servo, forcing his retirement for the day. Not to be deterred, he jumped onto Mike R’s spare boat number 4 and soon had it dialled in and looking racey, especially with its 2 tone black and white colour scheme!

Later in the session another Seawind skipper, Grant from Kensington Park in Orewa, arrived and joined in the sailing with his Seawind 77. During the afternoon we learned there is quite an active group of Seawind skippers — reportedly up to 14 sailors — racing regularly at Kensington Park in Orewa. It would be fantastic to see Grant, and perhaps some of the other Kensington Park sailors, join us at Onepoto.

Now that we know of each other’s groups, perhaps a combined regatta could be on the cards sometime in the future?

After racing had finished, it was mentioned that the earlier 1pm start time worked well and there was general agreement that it may be a good idea going forward, especially during the winter months. I’ll post a poll on WhatsApp to get some feedback from club members.

It was also noted that the sports teams using the fields generally arrive around 1pm, so getting in before them may help secure better parking. The Electrons usually sail from 10am and are normally finished by midday, although they occasionally run a little longer, so a 1pm start time for us should work well around them.

As you may already know, I have updated the ‘Upcoming Events Calendar’ on our web page. The idea is that it will automatically roll over each week, while still allowing you to scroll through the next 10 upcoming events to see what’s further ahead. Although the calendar contains more events than this, the free version of the events calendar app within Wix is limited to displaying only the next 10 events. With this in mind, I will look at putting our full yearly events calendar onto a separate dedicated page on the website in the near future.

Next Sunday May 17 sees us at Quarry Lake for some match racing. I’ve requested we get a nice 10kt NE with sunny skies. See you all there!

Cheers Dave

Autumn #3 – 3/5/26, Onepoto Lagoon
Five skippers made it along to Onepoto in very light conditions. Although the breeze was variable, a best guess course was set on the whiteboard and racing got underway at 2pm.

With such light airs, racing was slow at times, but the occasional heavier puff would roll through. Those lucky enough to catch these brief gusts made the most of them, often creating separation in the fleet. However, with patches of lull stopping the leaders in their tracks, the trailing boats were at times able to close the gap, keeping the racing surprisingly tight at times. We did have periods of a more steady breeze at times which saw boats nicely powered up.

Tom had his settings dialled in perfectly for the conditions and showed great pace. His only setback came in Race 3 (a handicap race), where a poor start left him trailing the fleet, eventually finishing last. Aside from that anomaly, he recorded four wins and a second place to comfortably take the overall victory.
Dave secured second place, with Mike G rounding out the podium in third.
We also had a few interested bystanders, so took the opportunity to let them try boats 2 and 3. Sometimes it only takes a small taste of RC sailing to spark a new interest in the hobby and a possible new club member.

The next racing event is Match Racing at Quarry Lake on May 17. Before that, we’ll have a relaxed fun sailing day next weekend (May 10) as it is Mother’s Day.

The buoys at Onepoto have now been replaced with a freshly painted set and are looking fantastic. While the layout remains largely the same, a few adjustments have been made to their positioning, and we now have three start lines to better suit the prevailing wind directions.

Mike Renner has done an outstanding job cleaning and painting all the buoys, with a couple of new colours added to the mix.

A big thanks to Dan and Chris Yates for handling the dinghy work—they made a great team and worked quickly and efficiently, making the job easier than expected.

Mike and I took care of the shore work, cleaning mussels off the buoy lines and swapping the buoys over. Mike also took the opportunity to clean the gunk off the old buoys while they were still wet. In total, the job was completed in just under two hours.

Finally, thanks to Patrick for making his dinghy available—it was perfect for the job, even if a slight leak left the crew with wet feet. Dan also took care of transporting the dinghy.

All in all, a great effort, well done everyone.

Thanks,
Dave