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2015 Coastal Classic


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quite a few of the smaller multis, plan B - GBE, sledge - farrier f82 

 

had to pull out

 

the big light cat, taiping could never get into its groove against the big heavy cat sundreamer

 

all of which makes charleston's performance against the big boys look even more amazing

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There was an area of light westerly between Cape Rodney and Whangarei Heads that Charlston hooked into and that was it, game over. Taeping went in there with mixed results and we bailed out to sea, coming back together but by then Charlston was a speck on the horizon and excellently sailed, there was no getting back at her. Predict Wind had the patch forecast before the race. Go to the race tracker and watch how boats a mere 50 metres apart got split into different patterns around takatu. Giacomo and Dragon got really shafted.

It was an awesome race and well done to the 50% that made it. Some years have to favour the upwind boats (not too many thank you)
 

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There was an area of light westerly between Cape Rodney and Whangarei Heads that Charlston hooked into and that was it, game over. Taeping went in there with mixed results and we bailed out to sea, coming back together but by then Charlston was a speck on the horizon and excellently sailed, there was no getting back at her. Predict Wind had the patch forecast before the race. Go to the race tracker and watch how boats a mere 50 metres apart got split into different patterns around takatu. Giacomo and Dragon got really shafted.

 

It was an awesome race and well done to the 50% that made it. Some years have to favour the upwind boats (not too many thank you)

 

Well done SD + crew.

 

It was an exciting race to watch even via race tracker from bed at 1am!

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So from the phil Clark SD crew. I am NOT rehab, know nothing about him and don,t agree with any of his veiws. It was a brilliant race and the tracker worked well.taeping won the marina race. Thanks to Mr hart and the rest of the crew for a totally brilliant weekend and to our competitors. Who would have thought that after 12 hours of racing we,d be splitting tacks with beau geste and taeping at cape Brett. Utterly brilliant race :)

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Yes, a brilliant race, a bit of everything.

It was great from the start under kite to North Head, except for the fact that we were being covered by all the big monos so we couldn't really hit our stride. We peeled to the screacher and headed off with Tigre nipping at our heels all the way to Leigh, sitting in the high teens all the way (max speed 20.2 knots).

Then things went awry. From there to Whangarei heads the winds could be 100 degrees variation and anything from 0 to 18 knots. PlanB passed us both and we then match raced them for the next hour.

At Whangarei heads the NNW came in a solid 15 to 18 knots and very lumpy seas. The boat took off sitting nicely on 7 to 9 knots, but every 30s or so the boat would go thru the waves rather than over and with all the crew needed near the bow to keep it down it was going to be another 6 to 7 hrs like this. We decided to pull out.

I was really impressed with Sledge, and it wasn't her performance that caused us to pull out. She was pointing as high and going as fast as the monos around us. 20 yrs younger and I would have kept at it.

It was nice to put her on the trailer at Marsden cove on Saturday and tow her home.

Definitely an enjoyable race even if we didn't finish.

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Looked like a great race and can't wait to read a few of the post-race writeups from the crews involved.

 

With 49 DNFs and 69 finishers, does anyone wonder if the 2pm cutoff time might have been a large factor in the decisions of many boats to bow out half way through the race?

 

Interestingly, if one looks at entries, only 50% of entered boats finished the race

 

I had a quick look at the stats, and  although I can't remember the exact numbers, it seems that the median PHRF for finishers was around .86

 

For non-finishers it was around 0.75. 

 

The median for the fleet was something like .81. I'd have to look at it in more detail but by those numbers, its possible that more than 50% of the fleet have a less than 50% chance of making it... 

 

Given that this wasn't a drifter, I wonder if four more or even just a couple of hours on the cut-off time for an uphill race might encourage more folk to stick it out and cross the line?

 

A quick and dirty calculation would be that it's a 120mile race (IIRC), and if it's all uphill and one sails a 45° course, adding 41% extra distance (sq root 2), then you have to cover approximately 170 miles in 28h meaning an AVERAGE uphill speed of 6.1 knts

 

Not impossible, but not necessarily easy, especially for the smaller boats.

 

My question is, how many people pulled the plug on account of knowing they wouldn't make the cutoff even if only by an hour or two? How many kept going only to find that they were off the bret at 14h on Sat?

 

If so, would it be worth considering a slightly more generous race closing time in the event of an uphill race that allows a few more boats to finish?

 

What's the plan for the future of the race? Grow the participation to encourage more involvement from average family cruiser racers (I'm not talking about H28s here), or focus more on the upper end of the fleet, say with handicaps above .8?

 

This is not a criticism at all, and I appreciate the efforts of the many volunteers and the risks taken by the organisers in running the race. It looked like this year it was a challenging event, and well done to all who entered, started and sailed hard, and to all others involved. 

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Had a good race on High Octane - comfortable reach to Kawau, managed to sneak past some normally faster boats in the light stuff between Kawau and sail rock, parked up in a very frustrating hole just inside the chickens for quarter of an hour with Elanore and Cotton Blossom, then spent the night bashing away to reach cape brett about dawn, and managed to hold Sambucca and Zealous off to the finish.  Even got the kite up for the last mile or so...

 

 

Looked like a great race and can't wait to read a few of the post-race writeups from the crews involved.

 

With 49 DNFs and 69 finishers, does anyone wonder if the 2pm cutoff time might have been a large factor in the decisions of many boats to bow out half way through the race?

 

Probably partly right.  I can't help thinking it was also the forecast for the next day that played a part though - breeze was pretty much turning round to be on the nose on the way home too...

 

People have work to get back for on Tuesday - if they're not going to be up there by late Saturday - and it takes them the same amount of time to get back because the breeze is turning and it'll be on the nose on the way home too, then Saturday night in Whangarei/Tutukaka and a shorter trip back starts to look pretty appealing.

 

Does anyone know if there's a specific reason for the 2pm time limit?  Perhaps to allow enough time for any protests to be heard before prize giving?

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