Race report from Satisfaction Awesome to see so many boats on the start line, both Hobby and CCYC. I managed to screw up the start by mistaking the 10 min and 5 min horns and consequently ended up facing the wrong way at the start gun... We drifted up the harbour with very light winds and many windless holes to fall into, not our best start but we made it up later. The breeze filled in around Chealsea and we enjoyed a few good crosses with Entertainer as they caught us up,.... sorry about the fishing line Darcy!(no fish tho) As we passed Browns Island all the others were parked up and we just continued under our own weight and momentum, they probably thought we were running an engine, but NO! Finished just behind Eyespy and Freestyle eventually, and rafted up with Bluebeat, could'nt understand why the CCYC boats went to the other side of the bay but maybe previous stereo antics put them off? BBQ dinner and dance on the back deck at sunset...wonderful. Sundays race home was another drifter so we motored to Calypso Beach, swam and lunched with a dozen others from Clearwater....perfect sail home after that with 15knts on the beam and hot, hot, hot sun. Thanks to all for a purfuct weekend, Phil.  Race Report from Urban Cowboy (Colin Rickett) A few notes from Urban Cowboy in regard to this 'cruising thingy'. By my reckoning I have been actively involved in racing keelboats for about 38 years. I have passed Waiheke to Port and to Starboard hundreds of times, I believe I may have hit it once by accident but never before this weekend have I actually purposely anchored a yacht at Waiheke and spent a weekend there. As it happens anchoring is a bit of a challenge - the anchors, chain and rope live down below amid ships (keep the weight low and out of the ends and all that malarky) along with the fairlead - a big-ish chrome plated bronze casting that is held on by three dome nuts that I had to go and buy the day before - some assembly was therefore required after crossing the finish line. There were some other issues - knives, forks, spoons and plates weigh a lot and so we don't really have any. I had to commandeer a tupperware picnic set that my wife keeps in the laundry cupboard. We had some pots and pans, but only because we don't normally look in that cupboard and so they have not been removed. I remembered to bring some tea towels but forgot the cooking oil and I forgot the ice, even though it was on my list ... and the freezer had decided to stop working (which we fixed eventually). I forgot my sleeping bag and we have nothing on board that even resembles a table. However, the experience has proved survivable and I have another list to work on should I attempt to do this again - maybe a two piece carbon fibre table that I can slide under the squabs in a quarter berth - that wont weigh much .... and maybe some kind of dinghy would be fun ... and maybe some pillows .... nah ... not pillows. Anyhow, what a bloody great day to go sailing and why the hell would you live anywhere else. While it was very light in parts we were pretty much able to keep the momentum up and the boat moving all the way to the end, even managed a couple of gennaker gybes that will certainly not feature in any 'howto' tutorial. Sure the beer was warmish but you can look beyond that. Luckily Darcy came to visit bearing a bag of ice - Darcy, you have never looked more attractive to me than you did at that moment (and hopefully never will again) - and so the rum was acceptable and I pretty much lost track of things somewhere through the Jim Barry Shiraz. Sometime in the night I wrapped myself up in the delivery spinnaker, affectionately known as big purple, and slept like a baby - albeit a baby that might have had something other than milk in the bottle. So .... a few things to think about and a list to work on. Happily, the Cowboy does not appear to be any worse for the experience, neither the crew, so maybe we will have another crack. Race report from EYE SPY: It seems the weather forecast type bloke got it wrong again! I was expecting to get dampish along with being windblown. This was not the case as we inched our way towards Rocky Bay. We did battle with the usual suspects but the longest with FREESTYLE. There was a large park-up by Browns island. A wind line appeared in front of us which gave some hope of a speed increase to something over 0.5 knots. My crew, Jos Ford noted we had a wind line behind as well. That's how it remained for about an hour. Time for a beer and a piece of Jos's homemade bacon and egg pie.......yummo. FREESTYLE got the better of us in the end. If only we had got the kite up earlier. Oh well it was a great weekend on the water with great company. ..............and yes there was a race back too........EYE SPY and WATERWITCH the only pig headed enough to stick it out to the end. Most pulled the pin on the start line due to no wind. EYE SPY lost steerage at one stage.......so yes, very slow going for a while. but good things come to those that wait and the two boats finished within a couple of boat lengths. Nice race Gary. EYE SPY with myself, Darcy and Eric on board came fourth in the Emergency services regatta on Friday. Pat on the back fellas. We were ready to go racing, we left our dock early and decided to cruise around the marina to see the other club members boats. Engine was going fine, so we clipped on our heady, main cover off and halyard attached. As we motored into the channel and our engine reves dropped.......... hmmmm not good. We knew there was not meant to be much wind all weekend and the thought of risking motoring with an engine with low reves was not a good idea. We turned around and headed back towards our berth with long faces (we had so much been looking forward to racing and showing off the new look "justice"). Luckily for us Darcy had not left yet and he said that we could hop onto Young Entertainer with him! Thank you Darcy for an awesome weekend away on your boat! The Justice will come out to play soon!!!! Race Report from Young Entertainer The plan was to race solo. I had it all sorted out. I had gone over the plan of how to sail the boat to Rocky Bay and make it there in one piece. The weather was sunny and light winds would be had for the whole race. I had food and beverage sorted and stowed. Communications set and ready and stereo maxed out to rear bias so i could get my freak on and not get told to 'turn it down'. Then I got to thinking... could I put up with myself for 5 hours with out losing it? I was in one of those weird moods and was suffering from lack of sleep over the past 4-5 days. I just imagined that I would ask myself to ease the main and take it as some sort of personal attack. Did I want myself to ease the main because I knew it needed trimming or did I want it eased because I thought I knew more about it than I did? What would be the outcome? Would I attack myself with some sort of verbal flurry? Would I threaten myself with personal injury? I probably woulda sorted myself out good style - maybe a couple of uppercuts to the chin and then hurl myself in the piss and on the way down shouting 'that will teach you your dumb #$^k!' So just as I was about to throw rope at the marina, I see Six Gun Justice returning with a dejected looking Sam and Dunc. They had motor issues and could not continue to Rocky Bay. I asked them to jump on with me and thankfully they said YES! (Saved a major search and rescue after I threw myself overboard). The three of us got to the start line and Young Entertainer was set to go. We had a pretty good start but tacked away into a hole. Infact we put in about 57 tacks and each time we tacked into a hole. Not smart sailing by me. Once we got to Meola the wind came in and we were off. We had a nice couple of crosses with Satisfaction who by the way were trailing about 50 meters of fishing line over the back of the boat... nice way to increase boat length Phil! We could see the competition ahead and we made good speed through town and up to Bean rock. We passed a couple of boats and then parked up at Browns Island with the fleet. We come out of it pretty good. We got a wee sniff of a breeze and managed to get going and pull away from the others. There were three boats in front of us heading down Tamaki straight and we knew we needed to beat Gary on Water Witch. We weren't in the same race but we always have a good battle. We managed a nice gennie run for the last couple of hundred meters. We missed Water Witch by about a minute. We were second Hobbie boat over the line. Well done Urban Cowboy for sending it! We had a great night and the water was warm and the beer was cold. Many thanks to Sam and Dunc and some sweet sailing. Awesome to see a good fleet of Hobbie boats out for the weekend! D |
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