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2014 SSANZ SAS Series NZ Spars and Rigging 60 Race


Cameron

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SSANZ NZ spars and rigging 60 report

 

We got a mint start, at the favoured pin (leeward) end of the line. The Entertainer who were just to windward powered up and quickly sailed over us, disappearing into the distance. Sadly for us this was the last we saw of them as they found another mode 2 sail reaching and were gone, this was a bad start to the day as we give them a lot of time on handicap. We held our 2nd place lane as far as browns Island where the Grunt Machine slowly snuck past. Watching these 2 boats sail away was hard as there was simply nothing we could do, not even with me hiking as hard as I could. Lacking waterline length but with a high handicap is not really what you want in a race which is 90% tight 2 sail reaching so we were in damage control mode. We knew a podium result was unachievable so were just trying to it in and not bleed too many points.

The rest of the reach to the bottom end was relatively uneventful other than some dolphins and loud music(had to be loud to drown out Damons Singing...).

The breeze had slowly built to be about 15kts and swung aft ever so slightly as we got further down. Entertainer was so far ahead we couldn’t even see them, Grunt Machine was not too far ahead and the rest of the fleet including the Y88s were tucked nicely behind.

We hoisted early and had a tight spinnaker reach briefly before clearing the point then squared aft down the channel.

Chucked a few gybes in on puffs and shifts and made nice gains back on Grunt Machine and put plenty of time on the No Worries who were not far behind. We knew there would be plenty of tide running against us in the firth of thames so wanted to be on the inside at kauri point where there is less tide and possibly even a back eddy. We had decided to run the gennaker along the coast so setup for a gybe peel from spinnaker to gennaker which worked out well. We managed to sneak back ahead of Grunt Machine on this leg and passed a few Farr 1020s who were out in plenty of tide. This was a great fun leg with speeds between 8-12kts and some nice little surfs. I was glad we got to test out the new reaching gennaker that I had spent so many late nights in the loft finishing! It was a glamour but sadly only featured for about 15 minutes..

We had pushed hard and managed to round Waiheke for the long leg home in 2nd spot behind The Entertainer who was long gone at this stage. The leg home was going to be a real punishing as the wind had built even more to 15-20kts and the angle just cracked sheets was our worst possible. Sure enough it didn’t take long for a string of Ross 930s to use their extra 4 ft of waterline to advantage and Grunt Machine quickly passed us and sailed away. We could see No Worries and Wild Oats steadily gaining behind but not much we could do. We managed to hold them off and rounded Motutapu in 3rd spot on the water. A quick peel to the #2 jib for the beat home in the lee of Motutapu and they were right there behind us. We didn’t hold much hope of holding anyone else off and thought it was going to turn real ugly for us. We did the long board first almost all the way to the bays, tacked over and laid up to Tamaki yacht club for one last tack into the finish. A few others had gained but we had managed to dig it in and hold off No Worries who was breathing down our neck for the whole beat to take a well earned 3rd on Line. As expected our handicap results didn’t stack up and we got a disappointing 6th on handicap.

We were happy with how we sailed, it was a flawless race from us and there was absolutely nothing more we could have done. Conditions were against us but we limited the damage by working hard and not getting down about it. Well done to The Entertainer, they just did an horizon job on the fleet and also Grunt Machine who sailed well and had battled with us for most of the race.

BIG thanks to Tom Coote for lending SSANZ his cruising catamaran as a start boat and to the volunteers who spent a huge amount of time out there starting and finishing us.

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What happened to Heaven and Hell, we crossed tacks with them and they looked to have it in the bag, then came back a few minutes later and were well behind with Sailor Moon comfortably in front. Bum Tack?

 

We ended up neck and neck with them on the line, they pipped us by a second. I'm not sure if the finish boat took our prod in account or not ;-) Just kidding they did a super tack underneath.

 

I was on Sweeny Todd. We caught right up to HnH on the finish line. There were heaps of short lifts and knocks with good gains to be made :thumbup: Those who just banged a corner seemed to miss out.

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It’s been good to get back out on the water after a bit of a break sailing on other boats. The first race went OK but some of our decision making left a bit to be desired and we were disappointed with the result. Since the last race I have completed some mast mods to get rid of some of the ropes and bungee that was floating around in runners and checks. We now rely on a sleeve and masthead back stays only with the mast being stiff enough to control the forestay. It all seemed to work well giving much better control over the top of the rig.

We got a reasonable start, finding the MB and sticking behind them as close as we could although slightly behind and to weather. The 930s all rolled passed by Browns Is and we got to the bottom end amongst the tail-enders in the 88 fleet. Could still see the MB so OK for us. Kite hoist was good although the main inverts when its fully eased which is a nuisance, and slow. Nice run down the channel although the boats that gybed more did better. Interesting watching the Squid getting a squirt on down the eastern side of the channel only to hit the putty. A big lurch, a bit of a wriggle and they were off again. Our big error coming out of the channel was delaying the gybe and getting caught in the tide. Dropped the kite and got back into it. The blade and main were plenty on the leg back to Matutapu and we managed to drag back some of the boats that had passed us at Kauri Point. Had a good close race with Unitec II all of the way around and just kept ahead of them at the finish by 1 minute. All in all we felt pretty happy and are looking forward to the last race. A special thanks to the SSANZ team for arranging another great series.

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I see another protest is up on the SSANZ site, this time for starting between the boat and the inner distance marker.

 

Protest dismissed

Due to IDM not remaining in correct position.

Full findings will be on the SSANZ site in due course

 

There will also be an amendment to the SI in relation to rule 8.2

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I see another protest is up on the SSANZ site, this time for starting between the boat and the inner distance marker.

 

Protest dismissed

Due to IDM not remaining in correct position.

Full findings will be on the SSANZ site in due course

 

There will also be an amendment to the SI in relation to rule 8.2

 

That is interesting. It seemed pretty cut and dried from reading the protest.

 

I look forward to the findings.

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Rafferty Rules ssanz 60

 

Great day out. I was missing a crew so thank to Damien off Wild Oats for coming along.

Off the marina at 615am for the motor down to town. (Jeez you townies have it easy getting to the boat in the light). Polished off a thermos of coffee and a bacon and egg roll while the sun was coming up - it was looking like a magic day.

Found my crew and thanks to the live sail die guys on a rib who did the crew transfer.

Got a reasonable start chasing a few boats out to Motuihi, and got a good hoist behind Motuihi.

It was all looking roses, dropping boats behind and catching boats in front, warm sun, cold beer it just doesn't get much better than this.

 

Hoping we could still hold our masthead kite after the aha's was a vain hope. It looked ok for a while but after falling over a couple of times we decided that the fractional zero was going to be a better weapon. Man I love roller furlers. The fractional zero was an ancient laminate number 1 off faster coyote which I cut down to fit half way out our prod, it puled like a school boy and we managed to pull away from more boats. 4th or 5th around navy boat we got rid of the zero and settled in for a hard beat. This is our least liked point of sail. we headed for north shore to get out of the tide and the chop hammered us and she just lacked power upwind 2 up. slowly most of the heavier boats caught us I guess I should have stayed more in the tide. we ended up popping a reef in near the finish as we were being blown a bit flat by a couple of 20k bullets. The one redeeming feature for us on the beat was the dolphins

Then off to drop damien at the wharf and head home. at least gulf harbour was down hill and the dolphins dropped by to say goodnight on sunset. .

Overall an awesome day with not such a great result for us.

Thanks to ssanz for running it. I wasn't expecting the handicaps to be adjusted throughout the series so that was a surprise . I guess everyone has to have crack at winning.

Thanks to ginge for the pics.

1623453_324847394341543_7683847174471685213_n.jpg

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Not too many reports this time it seems so here's our report from Provincial Cowboy - Ross 40 Longhaul 1.

 

A much better forecast for the 60 miler. Could do without another day of rain - the 50 was pretty wet. Quite a few improvements made to the boat since the first race = we are almost through the "must do's" but there's still a long list of "nice to have"s to work through.

 

Andy spent much of the week in bed with the nasty flu that has been hanging around - and once you catch it never seems to quite go away. By Thursday he thought he was pretty marginal to sail so I made some calls to some of our regulars find a back-up crew. It's amazing how many people actually have a life, were not waiting by the hone, and/or had already made plans for a weekend more than 2 days out - visiting parents, newborn babies etc etc. Most inconvenient. Anyway, thanks to Carl Syman who was on standby but not required in the end.

 

Quite nicely set for the start but then we had an issue with the sock on the gennaker. Bugger, 30 seconds late crossing the line. Still, better than Race 1. Almost immediately the breeze filled and knocked us which we figured was going to cause a problem with clearing the Illiomama Pole, which marking some rocks we very nearly had a previous relationship with a few years back so were very aware of. Pretty Boy Floyd had a similar problem down to leeward and there were probably others. After trying to work higher (for too long) we decided to shed the gennaker as it became clear we weren't going to make it. Bugger.

 

Getting the sail socked up proved to be another drama and so between that and a couple of mini round-ups we lost quite a bit of ground on the fleet here. Once we got rid of the gennaker and were back to reaching under number 2, Andy was knackered and needed a breather. The leaders had shot away and we were to leeward of Marshall Law providing them a great photo opportunity. We stayed that way down through the Waiheke Channel - didn't make any inroads at all it seemed. Most chose the inshore track which we chose to stay a bit further offshore. Not much in it until the inshore group got a nice breeze out of Onetangi and pulled ahead - it never seemed to quite get to us, a couple of hundred metres out. Another lesson for next time!

 

At Kauri Point we were almost 5 minutes behind a bunch including Craig on Marshall, Fineline and Spearhead with another group a similar distance ahead of them it seemed. The breeze went a bit funky around the corner with the current kicking up a big chop to punch into and some gusts from ahead and behind. We set up with plenty of twist and got the boat going nicely, getting a bit of height on the bunch ahead and then coming forward on them really quickly. Out into the solid breeze, we rolled over Marshall Law, FIneline and a couple of others. We came up to Bizarre who was in high mode and since we were on a knock we tacked toward the west - the boat felt pretty good in the solid breeze and when we came back to cross the bunch a few minutes later we had made a nice gain. Up ahead we could see a few boats and despite not doing anything too flash we seemed to reel them in towards the top - especially Marilyn and Gale Force who seemed to get tangled up in a precarious position close to the Shag Rock shore. Marilyn was last seen heading back to Auckland. Urban Cowboy crossed just ahead but we lost ground tacking away to staywell clear of the reef.

 

Nearing Shag we had once again discussed which downwind sail and went for the FRO due to the angle and what we thought might build to stronger breeze - sadly another wrong call as the breeze actually seemed to have eased a bit and we only rarely got powered up on the leg down to Gannet. Watched Phil come past in Wild Oats looking good. All the time we could see what looked like strong breeze lines up ahead so held off changing but it never amounted to much so we eventually lost heaps on the boats ahead like Urban Cowboy which quickly slipped away under a gennaker. Galeforce came back up to us looking nicely powered up.

 

After Gannet we changed from the FRO back to the number 2 for the 17 mile reach to Navy Buoy. We slowly pulled away from the boats behind and the guys ahead seemed to stretch a bit too - perhaps the wind backing and a bit of tide assistance elongating the fleet. So it was a bit boring without any company to pace ourselves against.

 

It was the same story for the 7 miles back to Haystack, a long beam reach and no company. We rounded Haystack about 13 minutes behind a bunch including Zealous, sistership Urban Cowboy and Whitebait and a few minutes in front of a bunch including our other sistership Marshall Law.

 

Then a long beat back up to Rangitoto Light. Pretty happy with the pace here - the rig and mainsail looked a lot better than we have seen it before and we seemed to have good speed. We headed straight up on port tack to try to maximise the tide boost into the Rangitoto channel. However up ahead the boats who tacked closer into the Rangitoto shore looked higher so maybe a bad call. But the boats behind us like the Marshall who tacked in seemed to lose.

 

As the breeze slowly eased the boat seemed to get going really well but again without anyone around us it was hard to know how we were going. A couple of large production boats appeared just ahead and we went past them pretty quickly but not sure what fleet they were in.

 

Nearing North Head we had to tack a couple more time to wait for a small container ship to come up the channel. A bit annoying but not too costly, just a couple of extra tacks.

 

Up to the finish line in a rapidly dropping breeze, lovely sail in with flat water with the tide pretty much on the turn. Thank you SSANZ.

 

After 3 attempts since buying the boat we managed to finish a race! And with nothing broken. 95% of the race went well but other 5% - mainly mistakes with sail selection - cost plenty. Using sails for the first time when you're not sure of optimum angles is not really a good plan. So there is plenty of potential to unlock.

 

Thanks to Rich Hulston for the rig tune on Friday morning, and Bushy at Norths for the main recut - it all looks 100% better as a result.

 

We have a lot to learn about sailing the boat, especially 2 up, but really happy with it and enjoying learning a new game.

 

p.s. Thanks to Craig on Marshall for the photos - sorry we didn't repay the favour.

SSANZ 60 - 2014 - 2.JPG

SSANZ 60 - 2014 - (2).JPG

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Nice write up Simon. I will try and do one for the Marshall in the next few days. Been a bit hectic with a trip up to Russia straight after the Race.. You had the old girl going very well. The slide through at Kauri point was really nice as was the tack straight over afterwards. You gained heaps on that shift! Didn't realise you got so close to Urban up there. Good to see. Nice race for you guys in an unproven boat!! :clap: :clap: :clap: One day we will have 3 Ross 40s together... Coastal?? :D

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OK Boatworks I'll take your challenge and yep .. been busy.

 

Have been taking a few lessons watching BOOBOO's videography.

 

Here is War Machine's story ...

 

Make sure you select at least 720p option in the settings (gear wheel symbol on bottom right) and full screen for decent resolution when viewing or you won't be able to read my too fast and oh so funny captions .....

 

 

and this is a screen shot video of the PredictWind tracker.

 

 

Need to get more boats using it .. makes for an interesting debrief.

 

Drag the scroll bar to fast forward. The source of the footage is here http://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/race/ssanz

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trailed the boat down from Waipu on Friday and rigged her up at Bucks stuck her in the water decided not to do rummy so just fiddled with boat.

The breeze looked promising on Saturday morning a little S/W slowly freshening all the way to start.

Set up for genniker start change to code 0 then to genoa as wind freshened and backed S.

Excellent start boat end and a good reach to Motuhie. Set genniker with a twist but sorted it.

Good run to Waiheke breeze a bit soft and aft and we were worried about being caught from behind but once clear of waiheke and some more breeze we were off again. A few nose dives into waves ahead but all good.

Jibe at Aahas and carried Genniker all the way to navy some pretty good speeds and nose dives.

Rounded Navy bout 20mins ahead carried no1 genoa full main toward Long Bay being slightly headed as we neared the shore. Tacked on a knock and for a while were laying Rangi light.

Bad sea way and we needed more power only a few times were we overpowered. Knocked so tacked back to shore, the now forecast showed a swing to the SSW. More knocks as we got inshore so tacked to lay right to Bean Rock a couple more tacks to cross the line with a gun.

For a couple off old guys in the smallest boat which you have to work not bad. The boat is so stiff we didn't have to use the cant, may be take keel off all together.

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OK Boatworks I'll take your challenge and yep .. been busy.

 

Have been taking a few lessons watching BOOBOO's videography.

 

Here is War Machine's story ...

 

Make sure you select at least 720p option in the settings (gear wheel symbol on bottom right) and full screen for decent resolution when viewing or you won't be able to read my too fast and oh so funny captions .....

 

 

and this is a screen shot video of the PredictWind tracker.

 

Need to get more boats using it .. makes for an interesting debrief.

 

Drag the scroll bar to fast forward. The source of the footage is here http://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/race/ssanz

 

Very nicely done guys. Agree re more using the tracker. We have figured out a good holder up near a cabin window to maintain coverage and we leave the phone plugged in to 12v all day. Worked well.

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Protest dismissed

Due to IDM not remaining in correct position.

Full findings will be on the SSANZ site in due course

There will also be an amendment to the SI in relation to rule 8.2

 

Any update on this? I still can't see the decision on the website...

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The protest panel sends it through to Cameron and then he posts it on the website.

One of these steps hasn't happened yet, not sure which but I'm sure it will happen.

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Current sailing instructions:

8.2 The starting line will be a line from the signal mast of the SSANZ Committee boat and Northern Leading Buoy. Signals will be made from the boat. A yellow triangular SSANZ Safety at Sea buoy may be laid as an inner distance mark up to 30 metres from the start boat. Boats shall not pass between the SSANZ Safety at Sea buoy and the start boat.

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