This year has flown by. NZTYA has held the SI Trailer yacht champs at Aviemore, kindly hosted by Timaru Yacht and Powerboat Club. There was a large fleet contending the 3 races on Saturday in breezy conditions. The thing with Aviemore is that the weather at that time of the year is always warm as the day gets longer. As is usual for Timaru events the social side, which is equally important in fostering yachting, was well supported.

The Trailer yacht champs were at Lyttelton, hosted by Naval Point yacht and powerboat club and with their natural flair for running these events, everything ran smoothly. These were run in conjunction with the Farr trailer yacht nationals and the Ross 780 Champs. The numbers were down for our champs so I would wonder whether the time of the year is best suited for this. If anyone has an opinion on this please email me and let me know your thoughts. Taupo yacht and powerboat club hosted the North Island championship and had 3 divisions of boat there. That was very encouraging to see as we don’t always get a lot of the C Division boats.

We are currently working through setting up a new website, this will feature a blog where any questions can be asked and members can hop on to answer them, this should make for some interesting replies as those who are most able to answer will be helping out their fellow yachty. There will be other interesting features as well and we will let you know later when all is up and running.

I like the majority of our members are watching what is happening with fuel prices, the question of how much travel will we all do in the coming season has to be considered. I hope that we are able to continue our travel to other clubs and events and also see a chance for the trailer yacht movement to grow as power boat owners find it more costly to enjoy their boating. I believe that yachting is still an affordable sport and hopeful that we will continue to enjoy this.

Keith Hollick, NZTYA President.