posted Oct 12, 2014, 7:14 PM by Admin hycnz
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updated Oct 16, 2014, 12:44 PM
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The Results (after handicaps): 1st Eye Spy 2nd Tai Rangi 3rd Escape 4th Firsty 5th Waterwitch 6th Six Gun Justice 7th Nona 8th Elan
Race Report from Tai-Rangi A great sail, wind was great and the sun was out. I don’t
know what all the complaints have been about over the winter series.
The start was a bit confusing with boat going in all
directions on a short start line and no hooter but after seeing someone in the
tower waving a flag we decided to go back and start again. I later found out
from one of the starters we weren’t over the line. We gradually clawed our way
back and with great crew work we managed to get past Elan at
Kauri Point and passed 6 Gun Justice on our way back at Kauri Point. We popped
the spinnaker and after stopping it from trying to lift the boat out of the
water like a parachute we started nipping at Nona’s heels. Who says our
spinnaker is large? Just because all the other boats fly theirs from only halfway
up the mast and only use pocket handkerchiefs! J Being only 2 handed an early drop was a good
decision after seeing a few late drops by other boats. On the short legs We couldn’t catch Nona but 6th
on line and 2nd on handicap was a good result seeing we were only
two handed and sportingly gave everyone a head start.
Race Report from Escape
Sunday dawned fine with the promise of breeze, the trees stirring already. A day of firsts beckoned. First race of the summer, first racing day in weeks with some wind but no gale warning and our first race on Escape. Who couldn't be excited by that. Well Deb for one. Not over being sick and coming to the realisation she wasn't well enough to sail was pretty disheartening. Still I set off with her words of encouragement ringing in my ears. "If you damage the boat don't bother coming home".
Down at the marina and my huge grin was frightening dogs and small children. I had a rock star crew and a boat with a big wheel. What more could I need! Apparently a better idea of which rope was which would have helped. As Bruce, Pete and Will worked out how everything functioned , found the sails where they had been hidden and packed the kite, George and I fired the motor up and we were off.
By the time we got to the start line at Hobby we had ticked off another couple of firsts. First hoist of the kite and even better first drop without ripping it or getting it wet. I could still go home!
The firsts kept coming. Our first start looked a bit average until half the fleet turned back. I can safely say they were all over, 50m behind the line where we were is the perfect spot to judge from (lol)! The tide was streaming out which helped overcome the many faults in my steering and our first cross with Firsty was a win to us but only with starboard advantage and we knew they'd get us next time. Escape flying along, the sun beating down and the wind streaming through my hair, well it would have if I had some. Who could ask for more?
Well George for one. He points out we could beat the 88s in Stratus so perhaps we might like to pass Eye Spy sometime soon. Easier said than done but a couple of tacks in the right place, a lift at just the right time and we're past. No chance of a gennaker to Chelsea so we two sail to the mark and set off after Firsty. Two sail back to the reef marker and then a chance to try out our spinnaker skills.
I can say it went up quickly and it's blue colour is a nice contrast to Firsty's yellow. Unlike Eye Spy we had no trouble finding the head of the kite. Unfortunately it's attached to the pole. First sideways set, tick. Rock star crew put it right in less than a minute.
We settled down for a long leg against tide and start to play with some of the toys. It takes a while to get the hand held GPS running and when it does it tells us we're off Long Bay. No matter we're pretty sure where we are. And then it all went bad. Unlike Proud Mary, the big wheel she stop turning! 5 mins of panic while we lifted hatches and tried to get it working again. Amazingly Escape stayed on course and then Bruce asked if we have an auto pilot. That explains the staying on course! First accidental set of the Auto helm, check.
It's all a bit tame after that. We finished the race in second place ( not a first first for Escape cos Firsty was first) and motored back to the marina, cold beer in hand, warm feeling in heart. Great day, great crew, fun race and a reminder of why we go sailing. Oh, and I could go home.
Elan's Race Report
So it started like any other race, #3 squab faithfully in her life jacket and all the crew piked, but fortunately as I was motoring towards the start line we encountered Trevor and crew, he kindly donated Joss thankyou both. Crew work was fantastic but skipper decisions questionable! We had a good start, told you we would get better! Although the barnacles and weed, you could feed the entire NZAF staff on what we have growing, should go into business! Mmmmmmm! A good beat up the harbour holding off Tai Rangi but he kept a wide berth of Kauri Point and I did not so we sailed into a hole that took so long to tack out of the fleet and Tai Rangi got a good half mile ahead. On the return leg out came the old spinnaker and thought we catching Tai Rangi only to discover it was the Justice! And that old Rangi had the most enormous spinnaker up (watch this space) Ah! Ha! So dead last again, thankfully we won a lucky dip of a wash at the floating dock! So maybe we will do better next time. A special thanks to Bunny Wood who actually managed to operate the head sail sheet winch with help from the skipper tailing, pretty strong for a squab!!! And another thanks to Trev for help with the mooring, he knows what I mean!
Nona's Race Report
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" Oh, wrong story, although it covered the start, the spinnaker retrieval and the position we finished. Oh but the weather was glorious. Once we got over the shock of a constant wind for the course, we got ready to pounce at the start gun. However we pounced to soon so it was a quick gybe around the ODM and we were off. Tacking through the moored boats with an eye on the depth gauge. It has been so long since we have started at the Club, and we have missed it.
Up around Kauri Point, it was cracked sheets to Chelsea Yellow. The front runners of Firsty, Escape and Eye Spy looked good. We composed ourselves to hunt down Six Gun Justice. Around the mark and around Kauri Point it was up with the small spinnaker to go through the moored boats towards the ODM. Big Blue is so big it could have got messy and fellas "it is not the size that counts!" Coming up to the ODM to round and head around Beachhaven, our spinnaker drop was unusual. Enough said, around the ODM and up to Beachhaven with the main only, we got our act together and tacked up to South Orange, around and up with the small spinnaker again it was to the finish with a better retrieval of the spinnaker second time trying. Although the results for us were not stunning, being on the water in sun, 15 knots, mass start and with several other Club boats -it was A GOOD DAY for the soul and spirit. Roll on the Golden Rivet Contest. NONA
Race report from Eye Spy:
Well…….what can we say about the weather for the race…….no complaints here! I had some last minute crew changes so the Eye Spy crew were Mark and Joe. A decision was made to fly the No.2 headsail and full main. The course was more or less windward leeward so we figured quick tacks would be the key. We reckon we might have been near perfect on the start and were leading till soon after the Beachhaven cardinal marks as the mighty “Firsty” powered passed. Half a dozen more tacks and we had to concede to “Escape” as well. There was a large gap to the following fleet which lead us into a false sense of security as the old salt on “Water Witch” snuck up to challenge for third place. All went well till the second kite hoist. “Water Witch was along side and it appeared that whoever hoisted their kite first would take the place. This turned out to be true, for the head of the kite on Eye Spy did not want to be found. We finished fourth on the water and first on handicap. Very cool…..well done Mark and Joe.
Race Report from Six Gun Justice
We organised a crew for the Justice comprising of Mike, Jude Miranda, Duncan and I (and messaged Phil Shaw to notify him that all of his crew were moonlighting on another boat!).
Boat sorted and crew on time, we motored our way out of the marina down to Hobby. We thought that it was only fitting that we should have a pre-race bottle of the pink bubbly stuff!
Main hoisted and head sail up ready for the pre-start.... all was going well. On our first tack Jude ground so hard that she snapped the handle of the winch handle .. bugger. Hey ho we thought this is not a problem as we had a spare! New winch handle placed in winch... bugggggggggggggger it would not come out. After much conversation we discovered if we showed it love and caressed it, it would come out! Great we thought problem solved, nope then our winch had issues and was not locking, so for this we adopted a different strategy - by smacking the winch with the broken handle it would lock! Whew!
Preparing for the start and waiting for the the horn to get a time??? !!! Realizing that there was no audible signal and with only two lights left on the board, a start was imminent! Luckily we were by the line, some may say too close to the line! We through her around but by this time we could not see the start line or the ODM as they were blocked by other boats! With Eye Spy on starboard killing speed and again no horn, we thought we were over so we did a 360 back across the line and back on our way.
With all of the chaos and boats heading in all sorts of directions, we seemed to have done rather well. We put the hammer down (winch handle) for an awesome beat up to Kauri point! We were in four place.. and the big boats did not seem to be getting that far away from us.. we were feeling mighty chuffed with our selves! It took Waterwitch a while to get past us and we had Nona behind us.
We managed to reach Chelsea in good time, but knew it would it would not last as we were not going to run a spinnaker. We rounded the mark with the idea of keeping out of the channel to stay out of the huge tide run. But with three blade fixed prop and the massive tide run, it felt like we were dragging a sack full of platypus behind the boat! Still we were having fun and the crew work was awesome!
Tia Rangi and Nona were creeping up all the time, and when Duncan was not looking and when we opened our second beer they got past us!
We had a pleasant run down with our No 1 poled out, but knew we were not in with a chance as everyone else had spinnakers!
We came sixth - quite apt for the Justice!
Thank you to all of the club members who made the race possible and of course a huge thank you to our crew!
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