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Island Time

By Island Time,
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Island Time

Island Time 1,244

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If you are either doing or watching the Costal this weekend, please post your reports here. I'll not be around (out sailing) but feel free to be the de-facto crew.org reporter!!

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Hurts

Hurts 6

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Looking at the tracker: the good ship "Cameron Burch" AKA Attitude?? look like they are going really well - 4th out of the boats with trackers and ahead of Dragon, be interesting to see if they can get near the 8.5 record.

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johnMi

johnMi 2

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This is the first real long race I've done in Sledge an F82R Farrier designed Trimaran (had it about 8 months) so I was not sure what to expect from her. I have 2 mains, a big roachy Carbon fibre main and a more conservative pentax? main and had decided to go with the smaller main till mon/tue when the wind looked light. That was when I left Tauranga with the carbon main. Never mind I could always reef..

The other thing was I had changed the cleating arrangemnts of my running backstays and I was concerned that the angle of the cleat may be wrong so we put a backup rope on the port backstay.

We had an average to good start which sent us on our way, we tacked and next minute we're screaming across the wall of bows (all on starboard, us on port) of the most menacing boats I've seen, with Darrell and Brett both saying get ready to jibe, no we may be OK, no we need to jibe, no we're OK. Not good on the heart, when you're sitting on a boat no longer, (Or heavier hardly) than most of the starboard boats booms.

We carried on up toward the lighthouse, and the boat felt really good with the full masthead kite. we had Tirade (an farrier F31) to leeward and I thought we may be able to hold her, till suddenly the running backstay blocks exploded. I hate to think what would have happened had we not put the backup rope on. We dropped the masthead and went to the 3/4 genniker. Last we saw of tirade (they beat us by an hr).

It took a few nasty nosedives to get confidence in the fact that she was not going to somersault. I remember seeing a video of an 8.5 with all crew sliding forward in the cockpit just before it summersaulted. I was launched forward into the sidestay once as the boat slowed from 18 knots to 3 in 1/2 second. In hindsight I wonder if we would have been better to reef the main as we often had to bare down to survive.

We sailed up to Tiri with Whio to windward and slightly ahead, until Tim did something different and that was the last we saw of them.

At the same time we were footing it quite well with Kia Kaha (a TP52) and stayed with them till Leigh. We then headed for Sail Rock and I think they went outside the Hen. We saw them on the horizon all the way up past the Poor Nights, but they took their kite down quite early I guess to get the right line into the Brett. We got through the gap about 10 mins ahead of them, and about 1 minute behind Freedom (a GBE catamaran).

As we came out the other side though, we just couldn't get sledge to go well upwind and Freedom gradually got away from us (to finish about 10 mins ahead). Kia Kaha passed us just before Whale rock.

We had noticed Superbad (a Farrier F32) go round Cape Brett about 20 mins after us and she mowed us down like a freight train. By Roberton Island we started to have concerns that she was gonna get us, and we duelled tack for tack around Tapeka point. We finally had to throw in the towel 500 metres from the end to get beaten by a minute.

In reflection we maybe should have reefed the main, and we may have been able to get more height from the kite. The upwind work slowly got better as we learnt more how to set the sails right.

Still, amazing how technology has changed over the last few years. I would never have believed I would have beaten Steinlager 2 by 3/4 hr and Lion by 2 1/2 hrs.

On Sunday it was great to fold up sledge and Tow it home. I was back in Tauranga 6 hrs later.

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Guest

Guest

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One of the better ones.

I went up on Equilibrium. We had a fairly copybook race. Conservative start, but got in a clean gybe and held the A4 past Rangi light. Great run to Flat Rock alongside Kia Kaha and then 3 sailed past Rodney. It was a fraction tight for us to get up and go, but we went for it holding the m/h A3 from the middle of Bream Bay up to the Poor Knights. Then had to come up and meet the fleet ending up just behind Bushido, Andar and Akatea with Icebreaker sending it behind us, and Systems sailing surprisingly conservatively - did they have issues? For once we had an incoming tide at the Brett and loved the lay in to the Bay. We had a great run to the line, with Akatea doing a nice cover job to hold us out by a few boatlengths and finished just on twilight. Then packed the boat up and sat down to a full dinner including a selection of wines and rums.

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Guest

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A good race for us. While others went for masthead kites, I decided to stick to fractional genny to save our 30 year old Baverstock mast. Probably a good move as Grunt Machine lost her rig as a result of a broken rudder and Squid Vicious didn't have theirs up long. No Worries pulled away and The Entertainer was gone to leeward.

 

Went well to Kawau and then went to 3/4 screecher to get above the Hen and Chicks. Too late realised we weren't going to make and went around the end, losing a lot of ground and not in good shape. Then the tack line and vang broke at the same time. NW, TE and SV had pulled away and we were struggling to hold Faster Coyote so went for broke and put the Genny back up even though we were struggling to lay the Poor Knights. Had an awesome run sitting around 15 knots, peak 18.6 for hours gradually lifting but then getting a knock and having to reach back in to the Brett.

 

Came through in good shape just behind the other three and were looking good crossing tacks as we closed on Tapeka but eventually we finished NW, TE, SV and us all within a few minutes and all well inside the previous class record and a long way ahead of the rest of Div 4 (and a lot of higher division boats)

 

We were given 1st on handicap as of the 4 boats we have the lowest PHRF, due to our inboard and weight I guess. Bit of a cockup with the finish times. Having done two 10 hour shifts on the finish boat in prior races I know it's a hard job but it needs to be sorted.

 

Video of our run here -

 

Gig was good but probably my last as missing out on too much fun with my crew and getting too old.

 

Sail back was nice, left at 10am and got into Auckland at 4am. All round great weekend and thanks to the many workers that put it on.

 

Numbers were a little down this year other than the great 930 turnout. It really is a super event and deserves the little effort to make the start line.

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Mothership

Mothership 6

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...and Systems sailing surprisingly conservatively - did they have issues?
I didn't do the race, but the perfect gennaker for the race was in too many bits to fix a week or two back. As such, had the big genny, a flat off model or the blast reacher, neither of which were particularly suited.

 

A shame as the conditions were rollicking by all accounts!

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