Yachting: Smoothing the waters

Peter Nees (left) and Roy Roker. Phot by Gregor Richardson.

Roy Roker and Peter Nees, rivals on the water for more than 50 years, have joined forces for the New Zealand Sunburst yachting championships.

They have put their rivalry aside and will race together in the three-day championships starting in Auckland today.

They raced in separate boats at Pigeon Bay, Banks Peninsula, last year with Nees finishing eighth and Roker 15th.

Roker (64), the first president of the New Zealand Sunburst Association from Otago, was short of a crewman this year and Nees volunteered.

"I wanted to show the southern flag at the national championships," Roker said. "Peter volunteered to fill the gap."

Roker, a garage owner, started sailing with the Macandrew Bay club 55 years ago, and Nees (63), a building materials representative, started with the Vauxhall club two years later.

They are both experienced skippers but have never sailed together before. The weekend after they get back from Auckland they will be at each other again in the New Zealand Masters Games.

Roker will be the skipper in Auckland and Nees will be in the unfamiliar role of crewman.

"If the skipper is not up to scratch we will swap places," Nees quipped. "We have got to be flexible."

Nees is the best performed of the pair in national events and has won a New Zealand cherub title and four in the international moth class.

His yachting highlight was to represent New Zealand at the world moth championships inWellington in 1985.

He also spent his final teenage years crewing for Steve Marten, who sailed at the Munich Olympics and built Sir Michael Fay's boat KZ7 and the "big boat.".

Roker's top yachting experience was to represent Otago in the Sanders Cup in 1980.