Sailing in New Zealand

[Ninefingers]

Hey Folks, I'm thinking of planning a trip to New Zealand in January, maybe 3 or 4 weeks long. No itinerary so far, and what there will be of one, will be pretty loose. I'm in Toronto right now.

I was wondering if there any good places a novice sailor could get a few hours or more on a boat. My sailing experience is limited to a basic keelboat cruising course on a catalina 310, and about 1000 hours of windsurfing on Lake Huron in fairly big, (for inland) wind and waves. Not really interested in windsurfing anymore though.

Is it similar to here where you can maybe sign up to crew on some evening races, even if only rail meat?

I don't mind taking a sailing school either, but if I gonna drop big $, I really don't need to fly to the other side of the world to do that.