Nz Offshore – Final Wrap Up Of 2026 Season

The 2026 Season certainly finished with a bang and was a real family affair. Whitianga turned on the weather as usual and threw some fairly typical conditions at the drivers, with a mixed bag of water, offering something for everyone. Race One was called short and red-flagged after Fury II’s nose dived off a wave into the next, submarining the boat and 3 occupants, causing injuries to all three on board. All three were transferred to Thames Hospital and later released with mild-moderate injuries. The team of Fury II and Mackay Boats have been instrumental in the revival of Offshore, so it was sad to see them with this misfortune, but great to see two of the three on board back up and about on Sunday.

Following the delay Race 2 was started almost perfectly on time with Wayne Valder skippering the start boat teams were well underway with Rainbow Haulage and Langslow Engineering breaking free of the pack before Langslow blew a gearbox and retired leaving Rainbow to run alone for line honours. In the 60mile championship things were certainly more spicy with 13 boats out on the water. Gen 2 jumped out to an early lead with Caveman Products running them down before a 5cent electrical crimp gave way causing them to retire. Gen 2 led the way with Triple Trouble close behind and Cougar behind them. Supersonic struggled with some handling issues and retired leaving the door open for Chindit to walk home in fourth. The 140HP team of Goldship had a fantastic race getting a leg over Coranto, who had the boat sitting very nicely in the tougher conditions with Nakita running home behind them.

Day entrants Firing Blanks in their Fyran fishing boat showed everyone that any boat can do it making the finish line in a race where even season veterans had issues finishing.

NZ1 and the 100-mile championship were won back-to-back now by Rainbow Haulage, and the 60-mile was won by the team of Gen 2. Goldship retained their 140hp class championship with consistency proving to be the cornerstone of the class. Across the season and classes out of the 14 season entrants there were 10 different class winners throughout the season, so very competitive classes. They also had more than 30 different boats compete throughout the season, largely thanks to the return of the Auckland event raising awareness for the sport again.

Off the water, Whitianga was a success for families. A colouring in competition for kids saw more than 50 entries on the day, and a kids photography competition saw a dozen entries and the discovery of some very talented 12-year-old photographers’ images still to be published on social media. For the adults we ran a poker run styled card chase which gave the wider community a chance to be more involved throughout the day with the association. With near on 40 entries it was a roaring success and well organised by previous president Kelly Rumens.

We roll into our off-season now, with more hard work behind the scenes to ensure we build on our 2026 year. At this stage, we’ll kick off again in October up in Auckland at Gulf Harbour, but this is still pending approval and very much TBC.

Each of the class winners:

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