Paper Tiger South Island Traveller Series Wrap Up Report

By Brett Willcock

April 16th, 2024

This summer the Paper Tiger South Island Traveller Series was expanded to include five regattas, starting with the Pigeon Bay Boating Club Multihull Regatta in late November last year and concluding with the Port Otago Festival and Port Chalmers Yacht Club Anniversary Regatta in Dunedin in late March.

Also included were the Canterbury Championships hosed at by Charteris Bay Yacht Club at their Luneys regatta, the South Island Championships hosted by Nelson Yacht Club at their Whakatu Regatta and the Queen Charlotte Yacht Club’s One Design Regatta. The series was well supported with over twenty South Island Paper Tigers all eyeing up the coveted trophy.

The first regatta at Pigeon Bay Boating Club was a great test of snakes and ladders sailing with light to moderate shifty conditions both days, where Jason Brownlie and Brett Willcock showed a clean set of heals on the fleet trading blows around the course. Ultimately Brownlie had the measure of Willcock winning five of the six races.

Jason Brownlie

The next cab off the rank was the Canterbury Championships at Charteris Bay which turned on some spicy conditions including a strong nor’wester that hit the fleet midway through race three causing more than one capsize. Gareth Moore joined the fleet having missed the first regatta and showed the fleet how it was done winning three of the five races and beating Brownlie by two points. Willcock rounded out the top three.

Heaps on! Photo: Nikia Upson

Class National Champion Dave Shaw was busy winning the A Class Nationals and taking out the Masters Title at the WASZP International Games, meaning he was largely sidelined from the Paper Tiger, however, he did make an appearance at the third regatta, a weather-shortened South Island Championships, in Nelson. He gave the fleet a Master Class in Paper Tiger sailing winning every race convincingly ahead of Brownlie in second. This was a standout regatta for Carl Taylor who sailed commendably to finish third. Again, Moore was absent from this regatta.

With three regattas completed Brownlie and Willcock had a handy lead on the fleet with consistent sailing and benefitting from having attended every regatta. This is where drops started coming into play with only the best three results from the series counting to the final score and with Willcock unable to attend the next event there were likely to be some significant changes in the standings.

Brett Willcock Photo: Nikia Upson

Regatta four was the One Design Regatta hosted by Queen Charlotte Yacht Club with Moore returning to do battle with training partner Brownlie. Interesting conditions created results that resembled rolling dice on a craps table, although Moore took the win with relative ease taking the gun in four races over Brownlie. It was also great to see Greg “Waggy” Wagstaff, in his first Paper Tiger regatta of the season after spending summer in his Zephyr, take a comfortable third.

The One Design Regatta all but sewed up the Traveller Series for Brownlie with Willcock unable to pass in the overall standings having to use the DNC from Picton as his first drop. There was however a chance that Moore could still take the overall win if he attended the ultimate regatta having two wins but stuck carrying a DNC. Unfortunately, work commitments for Moore meant another DNC for Dunedin. The cemented first overall for Brownlie, who also didn’t attend, and second for Willcock, however things were very close for third overall which ultimately went to countback between Murray Grimwood from Dunedin and Ritchie Fisher from Charteris Bay who were well rewarded with consistency and competing in all but one Regatta.

Murray Grimwood Photo: Nikia Upson

The Dunedin regatta was notable for several reasons, including crisp temperatures and clashing with SailGP in Christchurch, however unlike that event there was racing on both days with not a dolphin in sight, maybe just the odd penguin and iceberg! It was also notable that three newcomers Graeme Wall, Brett McCormick, and Warren Mears made their series debut. Also notable was the newfound boat speed of Grimwood who put a new rig in his boat and upset the perfect picket fence in Willcock’s results winning one race and incredibly unlucky not to win a second. He also did enough to squeeze out Fisher for third overall, and perhaps rubbed salt in that wound using one of Fisher’s old sails to do so.

We are looking forward to kicking off again starting in December back at Charteris Bay.

RESULTS