Karma Police blitzes much larger yachts

Karma Police blitzes much larger yachts in third leg of Round the North Island Race

Karma Police, a lightweight canting-keel racer measuring just 9.1 meters, has smashed its much larger competition in the third leg of the Round the North Island Race to win by three and a half hours on handicap. Around 40 yachts set out from Auckland on 19 February in the grueling 1244 nautical mile race.

The Round the North Island Race is only held every three years and has become a New Zealand sailing classic. The first race was in 1977 and was won by Sir Peter Blake. The race is now run by the Short Handed Sailing Association NZ (SSANZ).

The course circles the north island anticlockwise, starting from Auckland’s Devonport wharf, with just three brief stopovers: a 24-hour break in Mangonui and 48-hour lay overs in Wellington and Napier.

Karma Police won the first leg of the race from Auckland to Mangonui on handicap. The second leg was tough going for Shaw and his crew member Ben Costello, with the pair battling big seas and winds of up to 40 knots. Almost half of the fleet withdrew, but Karma Police kept going to finish fourth on line and sixth on handicap.

The pair won the third leg on PHRF handicap after finishing in under 23 hours, just 43 minutes behind Akatea, designed by Bruce Farr and sailed by Cookson 50, which is 20 feet longer than Karma Police. The next yacht to finish was M1 who came in almost two hours later.

Rob Shaw says, “It was an amazing ride and Ben and I are rapt with the performance of the boat.”

“The next challenge will be the final leg home to Auckland, around the East Cape,” he says.

“The forecast is for a 35 knot south-westerly, which will hopefully give us a good reach across Hawke’s Bay and around the Cape.”

Shaw, a lecturer in Marine Technology at Unitec’s Department of Transport Technology, built Karma Police with students from the Certificate and Bachelor of Applied Technology programmes at Unitec. It was the first time students were involved in building a carbon composite race boat and it gave them an invaluable introduction to those building methods, says Shaw.

At Unitec, students usually build project boats to a certain stage and then sell them on to cover the costs of construction. “While this is a great way to learn, the students don’t get the sense of achievement of seeing a boat building project through to completion. Building Karma Police gave them that opportunity,” says Shaw.

Karma Police has only been in the water for a couple of years but has already built quite a reputation on the water – it was third in the 2010 HSBC Coastal Classic Race and 2nd in the 2010 Bay of Islands regatta.

“It is awesome for the students to see the success of the boat on the water.”
Karma Police
LOA: 9.1m
LWL: 8.8m
Beam: 3m
Draft: 2.5m
Displacement: 1800kg
Sail Area: upwind 66sq m, main 44sq m, jib 22sq m, gennaker 120 sq m
Fleet timetable
Round North Island Race Start: 19 February
Leg 1: Auckland to Mangonui
Leg 2: Mangonui to Wellington
Leg 3: Wellington to Napier
Leg 4: Napier to Auckland
More info: ssanz.co.nz

© Scoop Media