The inaugural Windsurfer LT Waiheke Interdominion Championships 2025 was held from Friday the 21st to the Monday 24th of March. It was specifically timed to avoid peak holiday season so it would be easier for competitors to book accommodation and cheaper and to have high tide in the middle of the day.
The event format was focused on 50% fun and 50% sailing as per the Notice of Race, primarily it’s destination, sailing team sailing course racing and exploring the Windsurfer pumping rules supplied, so that pumping up wind is not really allowed, and downwind you’re allowed full on pumping. Having said that for very long distance races, if the wind got too light, it just made no sense to be not pumping, to ensure that we managed to finish on time.
Day One, Friday we had registration at Eastern Beach. We changed from Little Bucklands Beach due to the weather conditions being so light. We also shifted the race time forward so that the sailors could make use of the last of the westerly winds to blow us from Eastern Beach to Motuihe Island.
Josh Green easily won the race to Motuihe Island, with Bruce Kendall second.
Once the sailors arrived at Motuihe, the boards were laid down on the beach in order of arrival, so that when they left the beach they could leave in the reverse order, at 10 second intervals. They had to wait on the beach for about an hour for the northeast sea-breeze to arrive.
The second leg to Oneroa Beach on Waiheke Island began as a light upwind sail.
A green-shelled turtle was seen near Motuihe Island, and a mako shark and kingfish were seen jumping out of the water close to Motuihe.
Stuart Gilbert was an early leader of the race and eventually was overtaken by Bruce Kendall, Steve Newman and Josh Green. It was a tight race between Steve and Bruce into the finish line.
Oneroa Bay was the main venue for the rest of the event.
Day Two, Saturday, saw a light southwest breeze, with two course races run in the morning, sailing through a very full bay of moored boats, whose crews seemed to thoroughly enjoy the entertainment in the afternoon. The team sailing event was run whereby competitors made up national teams, one person per weight division. The whole fleet was also divided into three weight divisions for all of the event. Competitors at each team started on opposite sides of the start line entering from upwind, which is the same as in America’s Cup. Sailors would begin to battle behind the start line, before racing each other around a short windward-leeward course, finishing upwind through the start-finish line.
Day Three, Sunday, again saw a very light southwest wind forecast, so competitors were transported across land by car, and in the three support boats, around to Man O’War Bay at the Eastern end of Waiheke Island, arriving there at 11 o’clock for lunch. We all thoroughly enjoyed high-quality fare.
After lunch a briefing was held. The competitors’ rankings from the previous races were used to determine the competitors’ start times. They started at 15 second intervals, just outside the moored boats and the beach, with Bruce Kendall starting last.
The competitors were fortunate enough to sail through a big workup of birds and fish. A number of competitors stopped during the race to enjoy the spectacle. Another green shell turtle was observed at the reef just outside Man O’War Bay.
The race had started with an outgoing tide, which helped the competitors leave Man O’War Bay and get around the eastern side of Waiheke. Some competitors sailed very wide out towards the Coromandel Peninsula, while others hugged the shoreline of Waiheke; the latter tactic proving to be an advantage, especially on the northern side of Waiheke for the leg to the finish. The wind was from a westerly direction, so it was an upwind sail along the northern Waiheke coast back towards Oneroa Bay, with about 6 to 8 knots of breeze towards the end of the leg. Near Oneroa the wind backed more southwesterly, which mixed up the results. Sham Watkins was fighting for the lead with Doug Ferguson and Steve Newman, when Sham was surprised to encounter and hit a big shark, which threw him into the water. Due to the retractable dagger board system on the Windsurfer LT and the low speed, it was unlikely the shark was hurt, so there was little consequence beyond Sham’s very high heart rate, as recorded on his watch.
The fleet was very spread out by the finish and all, but one of the starters completed the course.
Steve Newman convincingly won the race. His 60 kg weight advantage would have been significant, and considering he is one of the oldest of the sailors at 70 years old, it was an impressive result. Sham Watkins finished second, Doug Ferguson third, Bruce Kendall fourth, fifth, Matthew Mcintosh sixth.
Day Four, Monday, saw very light wind again, 4 to 7 knots from the southwest. The competitors sailed two fleet races in amongst the moored boats, followed by a good lunch ashore thanks to Mark and Anita Killip, who had provided lunch and drinks after every race that we ran at Oneroa Bay.
In the afternoon the competitors had a Q&A session with Bruce Kendall and other top sailors including Greg Johns to learn about tuning tips and techniques and strategies for racing. This was followed by a buddy race, where the competitors sailed around for a good chunk of time before the race, and had some training from the coach. The buddy race is a format where the number one sailor is linked up with the last sailor overall in the regatta. The whole fleet starts together and the sailors help each other around the track. The result of this race did not contribute towards the overall results.
The prize-giving evening was a relaxed affair, with competitors probably enjoying the food, drinks and company more than worrying about the results.
Feedback from the sailors, and the business owners at Oneroa was very positive. The sailors all wanted to do this event again next year. We will keep the entry numbers limited due to the logistics of support boats, and the nature of long distance sailing.
The business owners thoroughly enjoyed having the spectacle of the Windsurfer LT boards in Oneroa Bay.
We much appreciated the excellent support for this event from Stay Waiheke. The accomodation they provided to the event officials served very well as an additional evening planning and social informal venue.
We are happy to announce that we plan to use much the same format for the event next year, at the same location, and have nominated the dates as March 6th to 9th 2026.