P Class sailors head to Tauranga Harbour this weekend for the Wihau Shield, where Sunday's five finalists race in each other's boats.
It’s a bit of a twist and a highlight of the weekend’s racing. Saturday’s top five return on Sunday to race for the Wihau Shield, taking turns in each other’s P Class boats.
Tauranga Yacht and Power Boat Club hosts the 2026 edition on 10 and 11 October, calling it "a unique swap a boat event for the top five boats". The rest of the fleet races for the Secretary’s Cup on Sunday.
How the swap works
The idea is old. When Rotorua Yacht Club first presented the shield in 1942, at its Easter regatta, five P Class sailors were selected for a "change boat" series of five races in which each sailor used each boat once, according to the club's history of the trophy. A 2021 report on the Yachting New Zealand site put the point of it neatly: the format levels the playing field and tests a sailor's ability to master different boats.
In a class where top sailors fuss over every block and control line, that's a real test. The swap is meant to spread any edge one boat has across the finalists, so a lot of what separates them is how quickly they can get a stranger's P Class going.
It also produces odd results. When Murrays Bay Sailing Club's Finloe Gaites won in 2024, he did it without winning a race in the final, finishing second, second, second, third and fourth on the official results. Nathan Soper was a point back in second and Lauchy Wills third.
A trophy found under a bench
The shield itself is no pewter cup. It measures 90cm by 70cm and weighs 13kg, according to a 2017 Yachting New Zealand article.
It came close to disappearing. In 1997 an algae bloom on Lake Rotorua pushed the club's Easter regatta to Labour Weekend. According to TYPBC's history, that put it up against the P Class North Island Championships, and the shield contest was suspended. When Rotorua made Labour Weekend its permanent date in 1998, the Wihau Shield died. It then spent almost 20 years "shoved under a bench in the tower" at Rotorua Yacht Club, in the words of the club's then commodore, Robin Parr, recorded in TYPBC's history of the trophy.
Greg Scott brought it back. The TYPBC member started chasing the trophy in 2015 after his son took up P Class sailing, and Rotorua agreed to lend it to Tauranga. Seventeen sailors from the upper North Island raced for it in April 2016, according to TYPBC, and Joel Kennedy became its first winner in 19 years, the Bay of Plenty Times reported.
The names on the shield from before the gap include Craig Monk, who won it twice, Ray Davies, Geoff Senior, Aaron McIntosh and Simon Cooke.
The Secretary's Cup matters too
For most of the fleet, Sunday is about the Secretary's Cup, and it's no consolation round. Kohimarama Yacht Club's Hugo Smith won the 2024 edition, with Callum Noyer second and Hugh Kensington third on the official results. Lewis Snape was fourth, Harry Strang sixth and Blake Batten eighth.
A spring date now
The regatta used to sit in autumn. It ran in April after the 2016 revival and in late May in 2021 and early May in 2024. Last year it moved to October, and that means it now falls two weeks before the North Island Championships at Royal Akarana on 24 and 25 October.
That timing makes this weekend a useful early-season test. Blake Batten won last year's Wihau Shield from Zofia Wells and Lewis Snape, then went on to win the Tauranga Cup for the second time in January. Wells won the Tanner Cup in January and then became the first girl to win the open Optimist national title in April.
Racing is on Tauranga Harbour on Saturday and Sunday, with the club's notice of race and sailing instructions on its event page.
