Karma Police, a lightweight canting-keel racer measuring just 9.1 meters, has beaten their much larger competition to come second overall in the Round the North Island Race.

Around 40 yachts set out from Auckland on February 19 in the grueling 1244 nautical mile race which is only held every three years and has become a New Zealand sailing classic.

The first race was in 1977 and was won by Sir Peter Blake and is now run by the Short Handed Sailing Association NZ (SSANZ).

The course circles the north island anticlockwise starting from Auckland's Devonport wharf with just three brief stopovers: a 24-hour break in Mangonui and 48-hour lay overs in Wellington and Napier.

Karma Police won the first leg of the race from Auckland to Mangonui on handicap. They completed the second leg, fourth on line and sixth on handicap, battling high winds that saw almost half the fleet withdraw. The pair won the third leg on handicap after finishing in under 23 hours, just 43 minutes behind Akatea, a Cookson 50 designed by Bruce Farr, which is 20 feet longer than Karma Police. The light winds worked against Karma Police in the last leg and they finished first on line in their division, and second overall on line and on handicap one point behind Akatea which took line honours and was the overall race winner.

Rob Shaw says, "Not a bad result for the third-smallest boat in a fleet of 38, especially when only 18 boats completed the whole race!"

"Ben Costello, my crew, and I are thankful to the unstinting volunteers of SSANZ, who ran a great race in testing conditions, and Unitec and Nexus for their support."

Shaw, a lecturer in Marine Technology at Unitec's Department of Transport Technology, built Karma Police with students from the Certificate and Bachelor of Applied Technology programs at Unitec. It is also a core component to his Master of Design studies at Unitec.

Karma Police, which was a project based on his design and constructed by Shaw, other Unitec staff and students. It was the first time students were involved in building a carbon composite race boat and it gave them an invaluable introduction to those building methods says Shaw.

At Unitec, students usually build project boats to a certain stage and then on sell them to cover the costs of construction. "While this is a great way to learn, the students don't get the sense of achievement of seeing a boat building project through to completion and building Karma Police gave them that opportunity," says Shaw.

Karma Police has only been in the water for a couple of years but has already built quite a reputation on the water - it was third in the 2010 HSBC Coastal Classic Race and 2nd in the 2010 Bay of Islands regatta.

"It's awesome for the students to also now see the success of the boat on the water."

Karma Police

LOA: 9.1m

LWL: 8.8m

Beam: 3m

Draft: 2.5m

Displacement: 1800kg

Sail Area: upwind 66sq m, main 44sq m, jib 22sq m, gennaker 120 sq m

Fleet timetable

Round North Island Race Start: February 19

Leg 1: Auckland to Mangonui

Leg 2: Mangonui to Wellington

Leg 3: Wellington to Napier

Leg 4: Napier to Auckland