Teams racing sailors off to NZ

Young sailors in the Cook Islands Teams Racing crew will head to New Zealand this Easter weekend to compete at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Teams Racing Championships.

A team of six local sailors will race in the regatta in three boats manned by two-person crews.

The team will battle against New Zealand school teams over a short course at Algie’s Bay north of Auckland. The regatta will be held over four days and each team will race up to 40 times.

The Cook Islands teams racing squad is made up of Rarotonga and Aitutaki sailors including Aquila Tatira, Josh Ioane, Patrick Kaukura, Dean Tetuaiteroi, Duane George and Luke Tukaroa.

The crew will be accompanied by coach Junior Charlie and manager Tony Heays. The Aitutaki and Rarotonga sailing communities have been fundraising for the last two months to enable these up and coming sailors to compete. The local team will have an official farewell this afternoon where winners of this week’s National Optimist Championships will be presented with their awards. Next week the sailors in the Optimist silver fleet will take part in a clinic on Monday before they compete in the championship regatta from Tuesday to Thursday.

Thursday will also see the farewell dinner for the Cook Islands Olympic Squad heading to Germany for the final Olympic qualifier event.

Special guest speaker at the function will be New Zealand Olympic gold medalist and elite athlete Barbara Kendall.