An excellent turn-out for Breakfast last week with 33 members and 20 guests present for the Peter Lester America's Cup debrief talk.
More on the guest speaker below, but first a few club notices.
- President Hugh extended a huge vote of thanks to Graham Fabian, David Hartstone and the rest of St Johns Rotary club members for the significant effort put in to ensure that the 2021 New World / St. Johns Rotary Golf Tournament was such a huge success, with in excess of $50k being raised for Dove Hospice and the wide range of youth activities that are supported by St. Johns. Next year's Tournament is already booked in at Whitford Park, on March 22nd, 2022. Block your diary now.
- As noted below, our next meeting will be our ANZAC Breakfast on April 22nd. A very interesting guest speaker has been locked in, and please note the cost for this breakfast will be $30, with $10 going to the RSA.
- It was also a pleasure to welcome Assistant /Area Governor Vinod Sareen from RC of Somerville to the meeting at which he gave a brief up-date from District which included details of the upcoming Conference commencing 25 June. Much more detail will be shared with members in the very near future.
Peter Lester was introduced to the meeting by Gary who reminded us that Peter has had an association with our club for 23years!Not long before the commencement of the 36th America's Cup Regatta we were very fortunate to have Peter Lester as a guest speaker. We thought that was coup, but last Thursday we definitely scored a coup with Peter coming back to share his thoughts on last months Regatta, the winners and some initial thoughts on the next Challenge.
Peter's talk essentially revolved around the development and design of a Foiling Monohull, how they arrived at the final design and why in his mind Team New Zealand continued to get the minor increases in boat speed, which, when all added together, gave NZL the edge - and as is often said - the fastest boat will always win the America's Cup, and this last regatta was no exception.
Peter is optimistic that AC37 will be held in Auckland in 2024 and will again be sailed with Foiling Monohulls although there will no doubt be some refinements.
When Gary was extending a vote of thanks, he presented Peter with a St. Johns Rotary shirt challenging Peter to wear this in front of the camera whenever he could. At first Peter appeared to be prepared to do so, but it was only a matter of seconds before Peter said "you've got to be joking mate". 