Elliott News

National Secondary Schools Keelboat Champs
20 College teams from Christchurch to Kerikeri will line up for the three-day New Zealand National Secondary Schools  Keelboat Championships, which starts on Friday at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. For most, it will not only be a rare chance to compete for their school but also do it in an Elliott 7 keelboat.
“The vast majority are dinghy sailors so hopefully we can show the social aspect and team aspect to sailing bigger boats,” said Corbett, who is the training manager and regatta organiser at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.“Each day they’ll also walk past all the trophies in the cabinets and around the walls. There’s a fair bit of history there and it might
All youth events at the RNZYS are sailed in Elliott 7 which  offer the option of either spinnaker or gennaker.   “This time we are using spinnakers and not gennakers, and that’s something a few teams have been battling with…” Corbett said. “That’s probably going to be a big challenge, learning how to use a spinnaker pole.“The idea is that when youth sailors graduate [from the Youth Training Programme run by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron], they can sail on any member’s boat. Some have gennakers and some have spinnakers and we have to train them to do both.
The action for a highlights package will be screened on Sky Sport Next. It’s the first of three events that will be filmed in 2021 –to help promote youth sport.The 20 teams will be split into two fleets for qualifying on Friday and Saturday before the top five in each pool move through to Sunday’s gold fleet racing. Pictured below last year's  winners King's College.