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2019 Coastal Classic


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We'll have a look at at during the debrief and see how it can be tweaked for next year. 

 

The lighter 35-45 footers that sit in Div 2 and 1b are very active at the moment, and div 5 has some of the classes in it like the 88's 930's and 1020's which all enjoy racing each other.

 

Div 3 and 4 is a tricky area though as it used to be the domain of the heavier slower keelers, but there aren't too many of those racing these days.

 

Case in point,1 fully turboed 930 was in div 4 and cleaned up by over an hour on line, although they still got beat on line by the fastest boat in Div 5, which was also the smallest boat in the race as well!

 

Always open to suggestions

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Could pretty easily drop the half dozen slowest boats from 2 to 3?

 

As it is

 

Stratocaster 3/southern fun 2,

Frida 3/Dirty Harry 2

 

Pacific Sundance racetrack is way higher than the 40.7s but has somehow got a passage phrf low enough to get into div 3.

Slipknot just over the phrf cut off and finished behind most of div 3.

 

There's always the chance of this happening - the split has to be somewhere. But in the typical SW conditions the back few boats in div 2 don't really seem to fit with the rest of the division so might be an opportunity to even the numbers a bit across the divisions?

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Freedom made it in one piece. The old wooden GBE is now around 43 years old. We saw some good speed in the gusts.  Reaching on choppy seas, angle of death, smacking into waves . We got in before dark.

 

Well done to all the 8.5s especially Lucifer, driving it like they stole it.

 

Good weekend all round.

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Freedom made it in one piece. The old wooden GBE is now around 43 years old. We saw some good speed in the gusts.  Reaching on choppy seas, angle of death, smacking into waves . We got in before dark.

 

Well done to all the 8.5s especially Lucifer, driving it like they stole it.

 

Good weekend all round.

Following the division 7 race online showed the awesome drag race you guys were having all the way up the coast.

 

Saying that, was that you guys who almost tripped over just after the start?  Surely it must be like golf where you buy a round of drinks if you don't make it past the lady's tee.  Maybe, if you don't make it past North Head you have to shout a round for the whole fleet. ;-)

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We on the Mean Streak (Class 930) had an interesting race, hoping to better our 4th in div 5 last year we ended up 13th on line... after snapping our tiller off at the transom 10 minutes into the race!

Had a bit on with fractional Gennaker up off North Head, loads were high in the half broaches and the thing just peeled off in my hands like the top of a can (work hardened stainless tube about 25mm from a weld)

 

Ended up head to wind with kite behind us, took a while to get it in and get the boat under control.

 

Couldnt believe what I was looking at, all that time money and prep and race over just like that. As we were intending to leave the boat on a mooring in Russell in preparation for family Xmas cruise and Bay Week (And I'm an eternal optimist) I decided to have a go at fixing it to see if we could continue under reduced sail. 

 

I got the aluminium boat hook out, hacksawed it in half and using 4 camlock tiedowns and an unspecified amount of metres of 6mm spectra we managed to clamp it around the stock, sandwiching them in front of and behind the blade and bout 300mm along the tiller wrapping the two halves of the tiller in a figure 8 style to bind the whole lot together. We then got going again under reefed main and #3 in the direction of Gulf Harbour, gingerly loading it up in the gusts and studying the repair. It all looked to be going well and didn't appear to be deflecting at all so we had a crew discussion in the lee of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula and opted to carry on North for the party.

 

Obviously we were DFL so no hopes for a result but once we set off it became apparent we were ceasing to be overtaken by people and were in fact catching div 5 boats slowly, sailing a 930 under canvassed in breeze obviously has some merit!

 

We could hear the vhf on constantly with dismastings and rudder carnage so really strived to just ease through the gusts and not fight the boat if it started rounding up. By the time we passed Kawau we were confident enough to choose outside the Hen and Chicks hoping for a more organised sea state and it paid off with some great sends hitting over 16kts on occasions. (also set a new boat record for having someone on the can at 14kts)

 

We were extremely relieved to make the finish just after 3am after not only finishing walking wounded but also putting some 20+ division 5 boats behind us in the process.

 

A great raft up with Hotdogger in the bay and watching the sun rise whilst on the rums capped it off nicely!

 

I'm currently sitting in a hotel restaurant in Bangkok nursing the usual post race kidney aches and bruises but still buzzing about the trip and my great crew. Can't wait to get back and start on a nice new beefy carbon tiller  ;-)

 

For all the flack that transom hung rudders collect I for one am certainly glad that 930's have one or we would have been yet another yacht requiring a tow.

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We on the Mean Streak (Class 930) had an interesting race, hoping to better our 4th in div 5 last year we ended up 13th on line... after snapping our tiller off at the transom 10 minutes into the race!

Had a bit on with fractional Gennaker up off North Head, loads were high in the half broaches and the thing just peeled off in my hands like the top of a can (work hardened stainless tube about 25mm from a weld)

 

Ended up head to wind with kite behind us, took a while to get it in and get the boat under control.

 

Couldnt believe what I was looking at, all that time money and prep and race over just like that. As we were intending to leave the boat on a mooring in Russell in preparation for family Xmas cruise and Bay Week (And I'm an eternal optimist) I decided to have a go at fixing it to see if we could continue under reduced sail. 

 

I got the aluminium boat hook out, hacksawed it in half and using 4 camlock tiedowns and an unspecified amount of metres of 6mm spectra we managed to clamp it around the stock, sandwiching them in front of and behind the blade and bout 300mm along the tiller wrapping the two halves of the tiller in a figure 8 style to bind the whole lot together. We then got going again under reefed main and #3 in the direction of Gulf Harbour, gingerly loading it up in the gusts and studying the repair. It all looked to be going well and didn't appear to be deflecting at all so we had a crew discussion in the lee of the Whangaparaoa Peninsula and opted to carry on North for the party.

 

Obviously we were DFL so no hopes for a result but once we set off it became apparent we were ceasing to be overtaken by people and were in fact catching div 5 boats slowly, sailing a 930 under canvassed in breeze obviously has some merit!

 

We could hear the vhf on constantly with dismastings and rudder carnage so really strived to just ease through the gusts and not fight the boat if it started rounding up. By the time we passed Kawau we were confident enough to choose outside the Hen and Chicks hoping for a more organised sea state and it paid off with some great sends hitting over 16kts on occasions. (also set a new boat record for having someone on the can at 14kts)

 

We were extremely relieved to make the finish just after 3am after not only finishing walking wounded but also putting some 20+ division 5 boats behind us in the process.

 

A great raft up with Hotdogger in the bay and watching the sun rise whilst on the rums capped it off nicely!

 

I'm currently sitting in a hotel restaurant in Bangkok nursing the usual post race kidney aches and bruises but still buzzing about the trip and my great crew. Can't wait to get back and start on a nice new beefy carbon tiller  ;-)

 

For all the flack that transom hung rudders collect I for one am certainly glad that 930's have one or we would have been yet another yacht requiring a tow.

Bloody impressive effort and we watched you overtake us about 5 miles after Rodney not knowing you were boat hooking it .

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Surely the two stand out performances this year were Motorboat 11 and Apache (beating the much newer carbon cats and tri) and of course the new record from the Beau Geste team.

Shame there wasnt a video made from North Head as the usual pundits had a great year with wipeouts people overboard etc all playing out straight below....

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Yes I'm disappointed that no video of the north head carnage has emerged. I suspected that it would be good to watch in the forecast conditions, but didn't realise that the torpedo bay wharf was closed and so couldn't get a good look (by the time I realised it was closed it was too late to get up to the top of nth head).

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Yes I'm disappointed that no video of the north head carnage has emerged. I suspected that it would be good to watch in the forecast conditions, but didn't realise that the torpedo bay wharf was closed and so couldn't get a good look (by the time I realised it was closed it was too late to get up to the top of nth head).

 

 

At 2 minutes 40 we zip across.

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Lucifer – Coastal Classic 2019

“It’s defiantly a masthead kite off the start” – Adrian Percival

 

At the start we were tight at the northern committee boat end, Ave Gitana, the Crowther tri, coming in fast behind (hi Liz) and Epsom Salts just above. Kite up and off we send, big gusts coming through, doing over 23 kts and heading for the Motuhie channel at this point. Go for the gybe, and we are pointing straight at Rangi, gybe angle in the breeze was a whole 60 degrees!

 

Kite down, jib up, drenched within 5 minutes of the start, and we were off on a cracked sheets send up to the lighthouse, pushing for height to try and clear our air, watching Epsom and Attitude sail over us and try to get through with the fractional kite on, nearly made it but both dropped in the end.

 

Once past the lighthouse we deployed the masthead zero. It was a really fine balance between heading down in the gusts but not driving the boat into the next wave and parking it. As we got further north the wind eased slightly, the angle to Tiri was a little too deep for the zero and we got sucked up into the bays slightly. Putting the two back up inside the zero gave us the additional depth we needed while keeping the speed on. Down to, and through, the Tiri channel we closed in on Attitude and Ave Gitana with all three boats within spitting distance as we set our sights on Kawau.

 

On the way over to Kawau we went down round the outside of Attitude who were bare headed, although we had two headsails up we were not really going that much faster, but maybe 10 degrees deeper. We snuck though under Ave Gitana here as well, kept the combination going and went wide out from Kawau keeping in the good breeze until we were at the angle to go straight through to Sail Rock. This gave us the jump on Attitude, but Ave were still right there , just a bit closer to Cape Rodney. In hind sight we should have maybe kept going, but Bream Bay was sketchy enough on the inside.

Put the zero away and started jib reaching across Bream Bay, with frequent bearaways on the gusts or just before if there was a nice wave to surf down. Once the boat speed dropped back below 20 kts it was time to turn back up onto course.

 

Given how far we were having to come away in the gusts, the final decision to go over the Hen was pretty late. We were always planning for it, but with full main and the no. 2, if the breeze had built much more we would have had to put the bows down 30 degrees and head below.

 

At the Hen we were close to the island with Mayhem just under us triple headed looking to go high. Attitude and Ave had gone higher earlier, and this looked to have paid, but as the wind funnelled out the other side of the Hen we got a good speed boost to take us out to sea and keep well away from the Whangarei heads. After the bash across the bay the flatter water the other side let us lean on the boat harder and start to pick off the remainder of the 50’s. Mayhem went higher inside of us but fell back, we then reeled in V5 and Wired, while pulling a bit of a gap to Attitude and Ave.

 

The next 2 hours was just glorious, the sun came out, and we were jib reaching between 17 at 20 kts in flat water pointed straight at the Brett. Ave and Attitude were never far behind but were in a similar mode and the gap stayed pretty constant.

 

The Pearcy Island crapshoot seemed to work out reasonably ok for us, it was slack tide so worth a shot, one intentional tack and one autotack later we got spat out the other side into the beat to the finish.

 

We stood on out into the bay for a while, but the sea state started slowing us down and we went looking for flatter water closer to the islands. We saw Attitude and Ave pop through he gap, and Ave started getting bigger very quickly, their additional length and horsepower to punch through the chop really helping. Eventually they got through us off Roberton Island. Attitude were closing in but we had enough gap, finally crossing the line after 8 hours 59 minutes and 57 seconds of racing.

8th overall on line, 1st on line and handicap Div. 7, 2nd on handicap combined multihulls.

 

A huge thanks to my crew, Hunter Gardyne and Adrian Percival, for getting the boat there in one piece, and for providing the Lady Nada Mothership in the bay. We wouldn’t have go there so fast without Attitude and Ave Gitana pushing us all the way, respect to them.

 

NZMYC and the Coastal Classic Committee once again put together a great race. There is a massive amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to pull all this together so hats off to the team, and finally a special mention to Lucy and Gary at the Duke, only just got their licence and immediately we all descend on them. It was a fantastic reception on the Friday and great party on Saturday.

 

See you next year, Lucifer out.

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Lucifer – Coastal Classic 2019

“It’s defiantly a masthead kite off the start” – Adrian Percival

 

 

 

Well, I wasn't entirely wrong as it was definitely a kite off the start. I'd actually bet you it was a masthead kite all the way to Tiri and I was definitely wrong there!

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Carpet Diem anchored across other side of Bon Accord from us. Main not completely down, top 5 foot or so still up. Might just be nothing but maybe main/mast track problem?

We just hadn't taken the square top out while choosing to stay the night or head home. Ended up staying the night....

 

Our keyboards operator suffered multiple broken fingers (we thought it was two at the time), 34 screws and 4 plates later...

 

Massive thanks to Coastguard who were already on their way to Thirsty Work and turned around for us. Four years of membership, first time needed, money massively well spent.

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