Welcome to the New Zealand Flying Dutchman Association

2-5 Febuary 2013 Flying Dutchman and Flying Fifteen Nationals

The 2012 national championships were held in Nelson over four days. Twelve races were completed in near perfect conditions ranging from 5 to 10 knots. Matthew flew over from Australia especially to compete with Andrew and the pair won every race except two, winning the regatta. Alisdair and Dave managed a first place in one of the races and second overall. Hideo & Patrick also managed a first place on the last race coming third overall. Go here for the results

The regatta was very much a success in the youth area with two teams competing on the Saturday and Sunday, Hayden and Jessie also competing on the Monday. These boys sailed exceptionally well considering they'd never sailed an FD prior to the regatta!

On the matter of youth sail boats, Alisdair has made available FD99, Ralph Urwin has dedicated a lot of time in the past two years developing an old FD95, detuning it and so developing an ideal 'learn to sail yacht' with both a slightly smaller main and headsail - Dave Gibb and Alisdair recently sail-tested this yacht, passing it with flying colors. Ralph is also doing research on the purchase of carbon fiber and Andrew is looking at possible foam sources for a potential brand new build that would be the second boat Ralph has built from the mould. Andrew purchased FD105 some years back, since spending considerable hours repairing the fore deck and cockpit and is generally preparing the yacht prior to sea trials.

The World Championships this year were held at Santa Cruz, USA. Four teams from NZ participated and achieved very good results more info can be found at www.fdworlds2012.org

The Nelson Marlborough regional champs were held on the 5th of November, with four boats competing over two days. The first day was blown out and the following day we had three races, Daryl and John got the three bullets