The race was a mark foy and those double handed were allowed to take advantage and start 6 minutes earlier than their calculated handicap as long as they used no extras! The results: 1st Near & Farr 2nd Pretty Woman 3rd Young Entertainer 4th Cloud Ten 5th Roval 6th Satisfaction Race report from Satisfaction Satisfaction and Roval started together at Rocky Bay on 24 mins with Satisfaction just pipping Roval on the start line, both yachts revelling in the beam on Nor Easter. A very evenly matched race with the lead swapping a few times, Satisfaction finally hoisting our Gennie and creaming past Rovel at Rangitoto. As the breeze freshened to 17 knots at Devonport the maximum wind for the Gennie was reached and we depowered to the headsail. Unfortunately we were not able to control the drop and ended up with a major clustermuck, ….Roval seized the opportunity and once again regained the lead to the finish mark, well done Lisa and Trev…(we came, we tried and we failed) A great sail home and a great weekend away as usual, thanks to HYC for organisation and racing fun, thanks also to my crew Humpalot and Zana, the food and RUM was delicious! Race report from Near & Farr Duncan and I decided to take full advantage of the double handed rule for the wayward race... well makes sense when there are only two of your and we had never planned to fly the spinnaker as we are still getting to know the old girl. We started first.... not much wind and right up the bum.... off we pottered slowly and were able to watch the rest of the fleet slowly start..... hmmm it maybe might have been more fun to start with Cloud ten. Looking back we wondered where Roval and Satisfaction were going heading North and correctly decided that they were messing with each other. The wind came forward to a nice reach and we took off with a fast passage to Browns Island and managing to keep the same distance lead as we started with. Rounding browns island the wind went astern again and we dropped down to 4.5knots but managed to pick up a bit more speed by poling out the No 1, until we got a sudden wind shift at North head with a rather tangled and quick pole drop. We then shot up under the harbour bridge at 8.2 knots and we could see that Young entertainer and Pretty woman were starting to close in with their reaching speed. We managed to hold our lead to line and watch Pretty woman and Young entertainer battle it out for second place. Yay a first, first place for the Near & Farr... very happy and a great sail! Bring on the next wayward... although I think our handicap may be changing slightly. ps Duncan's ears were very relieved that I did not sing/wail my song "allll by ourselveeeeeeees".... we were all by ourselves but this time at the front with the rest of the fleet behind us which makes a nice change! Race report from Roval Friday night saw Cloud 10, Young Entertainer, Roval and Arabesque heading out to Issy bay ... with the inevitable drunken revelry!! After a nice slow start to the day, we headed on down to Rocky bay were we were joined by Satisfaction, Near and Farr, and Pretty Woman. The right side of the bay looked favored, and plenty of space for everyone.....Unfortunately, there seemed to be a very large party of teenagers/young adults on shore have a very big party, and with a sound system to challenge Satisfactions... so the gauntlet was down, who could party harder? The aged sailors, or the young kids?... and yes you have guessed it, we totally out partied them! After the usual pre-racing debate about Handicaps, Roval's first mate decided to offer to start at the same time as Satisfaction... on the proviso that they went no extra's!! So with a lovely North-easter, Roval was in her sweet spot... a bit of argy bargy on the Rocky Bay start line saw Satisfaction win the start... oh, but wait, maybe we should put the other sail out! (actually, this is not a bad way to handle Roval short handed as the headsail is huge, the winches are somewhat ancient, and close quarter tacking is not easy!) With only a few boat lengths between us we were all working hard... but yes, much to Phil's dismay, the caravan overtook!! He was working his crew hard, so Lisa decided the only sensible option was to pour the drinks, get out my book, and work on balance up the tan.... with the added bonus that this was distracting the other skipper😊. After about an hour of Satisfaction trying everything (and failing) to get past, he decided to do away with the "no extra's" agreement and pulled out the Genica about Browns Island. But this still wasn't going to be easy, he did eventually get past, but certainly wasn't pulling away, and when he dropped the kite around the tank farm, we smoked past doing a very healthy 9.4 knts. Young Entertainer and Pretty Woman had already passed us by this point and were doing a nice we battle up ahead, Cloud 10 was playing the angles, and Near and Farr were so farr out in front we couldn't see them All the time we had been gaining nicely on Cloud 10, but was there enough race track to real her in? Sadly not, but with all the boats finishing within site of each other, it was a great race, and thanks to my awesome first mate, Trev, for helming (not that I ever actually get a look in on the helming!!) Race Report From Cloud Ten Starting the wayward race home from Rocky bay was a real treat. We upped anchor with only enough time to hoist the main and then head straight to the line, remarkably we were right on time. Near and Farr started ahead of us and our sights were set on them. We held our own not gaining but not losing them either until we came round Browns Island and started running flat off. They then started to creep away. Looking behind us Satisfaction and Roval looked like they were heading to Rangitoto so clearly a tussle was happening which meant we were safe for now. Young Entertainer was tearing up behind us at a very fast pace though. They caught us at North head and although we had a slight gain being able to switch to reaching faster since we hadn’t poled out our headsail it didn’t save us for long and they took off again passing with ease not long afterwards. Pretty Woman appeared from nowhere caught us under the bridge and then burned us off like we were standing still! We definitely weren’t standing still though and this was the fastest sail ever for Cloud 10 hitting speeds we hadn’t done before in the few months we have owned her. We were very glad to see the finish line looming closer though as the enormous headsails and bow waves of Roval and Satisfaction were steadily catching us. We were very happy with our first race and it was a fantastic weekend, thank you to all the people who make these events a success. |
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