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Northern Triangle race


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1 hour ago, Island Time said:

I reckon The Elliot Simply the Best is doing great, and might be the best value/performance boat out there? And still a good cruiser...

 

Yeah they are doing great.

The boat has had a major turbo charge

He would have spent substantially more than I paid for my whole boat on upgrades over the last year. Has done pretty much everything you could do to an older Elliott 13 to pimp it out. Its a very nice boat now but not sure if 'value' is a good word to use, that sh*t aint cheap!

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25 minutes ago, B00B00 said:

Yeah they are doing great.

The boat has had a major turbo charge

He would have spent substantially more than I paid for my whole boat on upgrades over the last year. Has done pretty much everything you could do to an older Elliott 13 to pimp it out. Its a very nice boat now but not sure if 'value' is a good word to use, that sh*t aint cheap!

Fair point! I haven't seen the changes...

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The boys on Shimmer must be stoked!! Certainly NOT Townson cruiser conditions especially the last section.

Only 8minutes behind the nearest Y11 on line - 1st on corrected. - Probably did it all with a roast chicken and hot scones  from the galley.

Well Done guys great result!!

Hmmm will this kill their Hcap and give us a chance in the SANZ? 

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SSANZ Northern Triangle Race Report Shimmer II

 

The prequel was always going to be a hard one for us on Shimmer our 5 tonne Kauri log camper doesn't really excel in light airs.

We did ok on the beat and stayed in touch with the fast div 3 boats to the top of Motutapu but as it turned into more of a reaching course we watched them all slowly walk away.

Managed to get a 6th which wasn't as bad as it could have been but we were really hoping for some good breeze in race 2 to even out race 1.

Not to be.

Again a very light start to the main event, we managed a good start right at the boat and right next to Rocky,

it continues to amaze me how often we have really good boat on boat racing with Rocky a SR26 as about as opposite a yacht to Shimmer as you can get.

We worked hard through the very light shifty breeze as the fleet slowly spread out and decided to take a lift out to sea above the Rangitoto shore line.

This paid for us and Open Country and eventually we were pointing right at Little Barrier, leading our division

then the breeze caved and when it eventually arrived it was from aft and all our gains on the fleet were wasted.

The rest of leg up to Piercy Island I got really grumpy as we slowly (like 3 knots slow) got passed by more and more boats.

By the rounding at Piercy I was starting to write the Trade Me listing in my head " For sail lovely cruising boat, many race sails " then Reuben goes, I think all these guys putting in a long board out to sea after Piercy are mad, we can put in a board at any time in the next 12 hours

So we tacked at the Island and immediately my mood improved, I was watching my favourite bit of the coast line in late afternoon light and we were back to up wind sailing in building pressure.

Managed to just lay above the Poor Knights which we passed on sunset, which is pretty magic.

Our little short cut and the chance to crack sheets for the lay down to Barrier got us right back in the main bunch of Division 3 and then for the next 20 hours or so 6 of us had the most incredible tight race,

2 Y11s a Y88 an Sr (Rocky of course) and little Real Deal the smallest boat in the race

we all took turns making gains and then loosing them but with all the corners we were going around from the Mercs right back up to Coromandel the over all race stayed very close.

Personal high light of the whole race was Tuesday sunset getting rides down waves off Coromandel in the last of a dying breeze kite up and making big gains on the guys in front who had once again got a bit ahead of us.

Just after dark thought we had seen a genuine UFO until some internet research found out it was the new Space X satellite.

It was a long slow night working back into the gulf in a very light and fickle breeze, then maybe 2 am it closed right down.

We edged up the Waiheke side off the course to try and be the first to catch the new breeze in the morning and it paid off.

We rolled down to re join our same gang of 6 and had especially close race with Rocky and Real Deal all the way to the finish. It's interesting that we 3 were the podium boats.

Couldnt' believe we won, had thought maybe a 3rd if we were lucky.

Im really stoked with our result as it was in anything but our conditions and we managed to stay in there with some fast boats and really good sailors.

Big ups to Rocky and Real Deal, 66 hours of continuous racing and we were all within a few minutes at the finish!

Thanks to my co skipper Reuben who is totally unflappable and made some great calls and put up with me.

Thanks to Bryony Joe and Oscar for letting me go off and have adventures and to Emma and Kiera for same

Most importantly thank you so Much to Jon, Scott, Neil and Sarah at SSANZ

I am very aware how much easier it would have been to cancel this event and can't thank you enough for your commitment to make the race possible and safe in a very difficult time.

From the clear communications, to the safety culture, to the pies and beers at the finish you really do run the best long distance yacht races in New Zealand.

Bring on The RNI 2023

 

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On 22/02/2022 at 11:52 AM, ex Elly said:

OMG, the Entertainer and Open Country have lost out badly by sailing inside Great Barrier. Looked good to start with didn't work out for them.

 

Certainly was a very regretful decision. All the PredictWind weather routes showed that as being the best route but we should never have split with the fleet there. It also didn't help that I have never sailed around there and in my mind the Mercs were a short nip up from the bottom end of Barrier. That was a most awful and unnecessary extra 30 mile beat 😐 I'd hate to think how far we sailed in that race. Lots learned and I am happy that we finished.

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3 hours ago, Norwegian Blue said:

That was a most awful and unnecessary extra 30 mile beat

I expected you both to end up last on corrected time. And yet you both came out mid fleet. Must have done some good catching up after that!

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3 hours ago, ex Elly said:

I expected you both to end up last on corrected time. And yet you both came out mid fleet. Must have done some good catching up after that!

It was a winner until it wasn’t 

Going south early after Piercy was a great move but getting from inside Colville channel to outside Mercury Islands was the killer. After that it was just how long it took is wiggle across the gulf 

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On 26/02/2022 at 11:28 AM, Norwegian Blue said:

Certainly was a very regretful decision. All the PredictWind weather routes showed that as being the best route but we should never have split with the fleet there. It also didn't help that I have never sailed around there and in my mind the Mercs were a short nip up from the bottom end of Barrier. That was a most awful and unnecessary extra 30 mile beat 😐 I'd hate to think how far we sailed in that race. Lots learned and I am happy that we finished.

Yeah - the maths look good at the time and even at 12:00am off Fitzroy we were looking good- but by Tryphena it all went bad. We had to sail damn hard the rest of the way- luckily we made good ground to Colvile and also through the gap at Motuhui - so only an hour +  late to the finish.

 

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