The Cook Strait Classic - Hooplah and Gaff Rigged Ferries.

[Guest]

Well, earlier in the week the forecast told tantalising tales of 20 knot South Easterlies. Then Tony and Vesna took delivery of their brand new jib-top from Linton Sails, and that caused the forecast to change to 'howling Northerly gales'. Friday saw the forecast change again to less-than-howling Northerlies... According to the MetService the forecast as of 1pm Friday was:

Forecast:

*** GALE WARNING IN FORCE ***

Northerly 25 knots rising to 35 knots late this evening, then easing to 25 knots in the morning and to 15 knots Saturday afternoon. Sea becoming very rough for a time. Poor visibility in rain at times.

 

At the briefing on Thursday Paul Aitken mentioned that the forecast was for the wind to "ease" over the course of Saturday. I did ask a clarifying question - was that "ease" in the same sense that the wind "eased" from Mana to Cape Koamaru during the Mana - Picton race earlier in the season?

 

On that occasion my race report included the following:

 

The forecast was for South Easterlies, 25 knots in the morning, easing in the afternoon to 15 knots, seas rough, becoming slight. [...] The 25 knot south easterly then began easing. At first it eased to 30 knots, and then it eased further to 35 knots. The rough sea eased too, from rough to very rough. By the time we were approaching The Brothers the wind had eased all the way to 40 - 45 knots and there was spume streaks on the 'slight' breaking seas.

 

No, not that kind of "easing" Bardy, they said...

 

The briefing covered all the important things like who was entered, where to go, when to go there, how to avoid getting run over by a ferry in Tory Channel, where to finish, and most importantly of all where to go for the party afterwards. And what to wear... And what to drink... it's a complicated business this yacht racing thing. Lots of instructions.

 

So the crew on Clear Vision was the same stellar line up as for the Port Underpants race:

 

Tony Wells - helm (Feeling better this time, no flu, but doing the race any way)

Mark Ansell - main

Vesna Wells - keyboards (Feeling better this time, no kidney infection, but doing the race anyway)

Bardy - trimmer

Banana Boy - grinder

Little Mark - mast

Stevo - bow

 

Banana Boy was very keen for this race. So keen in fact that he txted me at 9.00am asking me what time I was heading down to the boat. I said 11, and he replied that he was already down there! Hehehe.. At the briefing Banana Boy had ask Mark Ansell if he knew what time we had to be at the boat, and Mark had replied "Nein!"...

 

At the boat the crew arrived one after the other. Tony and Vesna had stocked the boat with food, sails, some of the cruising stuff, all the things Tony thought were necessary for the race, plus quite a few things that Vesna rescued from the lock-up which Tony had decided might be 'unnecessary' for the race. This is the usual battle of wills that occurs before Clear Vision sets off. Tony and Vesna also brought beer. I too had a dozen beer. Little Mark then arrived with 2 more dozen. Tony managed to find places to stow all of this beer. Some thought was given to beginning to drink it, as there were fears about whether there would be enough time after the race to get through it all. Then Stevo arrived with a bottle of Mt. Gay, and Mark Ansell arrived another dozen beer, a bottle of Mt Gay and a bottle of Clearview wine. He was mildly mocked for not having found a "Clear Vision" Chardonnay, but congratulated for getting close. All of the aforementioned beverages were stowed. As coincidence would have it the only places we could find for it were on the starboard side of the boat. Oh, and I should also mention that Banana-Boy had a bottle of Jagermiester...

 

The new bright yellow jackstays were fitted. The brand new Linton Sails jib-top was set up on the foredeck. The albino-carbon cruising main was ready to go on the boom. The safety briefing was conducted by Vesna, and we were ready to go.

 

Once out with the sails up there was considerable hooplah over just how nice the brand new Linton Sails jib-top was. Not only was it aesthetically pleasing, it was extraordinarily easy to trim well. It even sounded fast. Some thought was put into our pre-start strategy. After all the postulating, and jocularity was stripped away it basically boiled down to: Don't be over early, be on the line, at speed, in clear air, not too close to the container wharf, but not too far away either, ahead of everyone else.

 

Easy.

 

The five minute gun went and we began the process of not stuffing up the starting strategy. There was some continuation of the Tony and Vesna "we don't need to bring this - yes we do need to bring it" pre-match battle of wills... Vesna was concerned we were a little bit early for the line, and Tony was convinced we were somewhat later. The instruments said we were about 18 metres from the line when the gun went, at speed, in clear air, not too close to the container wharf, but not too far away either, ahead of everyone else.

 

That goes down as a near perfect execution of the pre-start strategy. Congratulatory hooplah abounded.

 

During the rapid 2 sail reach across to Point Halswell Caro Vita's extra waterline length saw her scoot through to leeward of us. Bridgey and the Guarantee team also managed to roll over us before Point Halswell and Kimbo and his veritable army of crew on Young Nicholson were close enough that we were quite worried about them. We went for the fractional kite for the run down the harbour. Our hoist was not quite perfect - the foredeck union managed to get a wine-glass in it, but it came out pretty quickly. Caro-Vita and Young Nicholson's hoists were not so successful, and The Guarantee and ourselves were soon clear first and second. As we approached steeple light on port gybe there was a brief moment of concern that two sunbursts rounding Steeple Rock light might call starboard on us, but they tacked conveniently a boat length to leeward of us. We had the albino-carbon cruising main, the fractional kite and the brand-new Linton Sails jib-top all up and set beautifully approaching Moaning-Mini. In the spirit of Christmas, The Guarantee then attempted a Mast head kite to fractional gennaker peel. In the on-going quest to show Banana-Boy exactly how not to drop downwind sails in offshore races their peel went spectacularly pear-shaped. The kite was FULLY submerged behind them, the gennaker was over sheeted, and they broached. For some moments there was concern that they were going to hit Moaning-Mini, but they managed to broach hard enough to go above it. Little Mark had his camera out and was capturing this on film. We passed behind The Guarantee, and behind their spinnaker too, and rounded Moaning-Mini in the lead!

 

There was some mildly restrained hooplah at this point. Vesna commented that she was extremely keen that this moment made the post race report. With the wind "easing" as we headed across Lyall Bay we first doused the brand new Linton Sails jib-top, and hit 11.5 knots under fractional kite with the pole RIGHT forward and full albino-carbon cruising main. We were not however on course to go anywhere near close enough to Tom's Rock to get Vesna concerned about us hitting it, so we decided to drop the kite and rehoist the brand new Linton Sails jib-top. This resulted in a further step in Banana-Boy's continued education on just how to not drop downwind sails in offshore races... there was some shrimp fishing involved, but hopefully no one caught it on film. With the catch back on board we began racing again, still in the lead. Several entertaining minutes of Vesna checking we were not going to hit Tom's Rock and Mark Ansell assuring her we were way below it, and Tony eagerly asking loud enough to be heard by Mark, but not loud enough to be heard by Vesna if he could come any higher ensued. The Guarantee slowly caught and then passed us to windward, while the rest of the fleet made a spectacular sight charging towards Karori Light.

 

As forecast, the wind then began to "ease". So we put a reef in the main. There was considerable debate during this exercise as to exactly which rope should be being pulled, when, and by whom. Some people came very close to being spoken to somewhat sharply. Vesna issued a proclamation that one person, and one person only should be giving the orders, and that one person was to be Tony, the skipper. Tony, in the spirit of solidarity with the rest of the crew that makes him such a nice guy to sail with, then promptly told her to pull the wrong rope. However the reef was put in successfully, and not a moment too soon, I'll be bound, as the wind had eased dramatically with gusts now over 35 knots and white water abounding. Entering the Karori Rip a couple of large steep waves passed over the bow, over the cabin top and all over the crew in the cockpit too. Muttered complaints were deciphered - something about the foredeck crew not blocking the waves effectively enough. Clear Vision was going light a train. A freight train, or more specifically - a freight train with large amounts of beer on board, but a train none-the-less. We spent a good hour surfing on The Guarantee's quarter wake and as this continued there was hooplah aplenty as we begun struggling to identify Young Nicholson in the distance astern of us. We briefly hoisted Linton Sails' lovely stay sail, but the angle was slightly too tight for it to really help so after a few minutes the foredeck had another chance to show Banana-Boy how not to take downwind sails down in an offshore race. They failed however. This was in fact a very efficient drop.

 

Having passed Tom's Rock, Vesna's collision concern factor was now exclusively focused on ferries. In the middle of Cook strait we sailed into a thick bank of sea fog. This, naturally, heightened her concern, as white ferries were significantly more likely to sneak up upon you when visibility was down to under 100 metres, and the whole horizon was shrouded in white, ferry disguising fog. Hooplah turned to hilarity when she suddenly exclaimed: "What's that white shape there... is it a ferry?"

 

Mark Ansell dryly observed "Well if it is, it's the first gaff rigged interislander I have ever seen. That's Loloma."

 

And it was. And she looked splendid with a reef in her main and her jib straining and her gunwales awash and her CYA pennant snapping in the breeze. Friendly waves were exchanged and soon thereafter we emerged out of the fog bank into bright sunshine, and there was much hooplah indeed...

 

"Where's the Guarantee?" Tony asked eagerly.

 

"Right there... about where she was when we entered the fog... 200 metres ahead and slightly to windward." At the raft up later Bridgey recounted that there was some muttering onboard The Guarantee at this point as the sentence "right where they were when we entered the fog bank" was used to describe where Clear Vision was.

 

At the 3 miles to go to the Tory entrance point Vesna radioed all ships. Awatere replied that she too was heading for the entrance of Tory Channel. She asked how visibility was where we were, and we replied that "our vision was clear". Awatere said she would pass to the East of us. Vesna rejoined the crew on the rail and reported Awatere was due out of Tory Channel at any moment. And then Awatere appeared out of the fog - behind us... apparently the inbound/outbound part of the discussion with Awatere had been mixed up. She steamed past us and through the entrance. We then took the brand new Linton Sails jib top down and hoisted the medium jib, and put a short tack to the north in to try and hook into some stronger breeze along the northern approaches. The Guarantee had to do one extra tack to stay clear of Awatere, and then the two of us eased sheets and headed down to the line, with us finishing a few minutes after them, with Caro Vita, CU Later and Young Nicholson all just inside the entrance to Tory Channel as we finished.

 

Photos by Mark Holmes and Mark Ansell.

[Guest]

The first order of the day was to open a beer (as we had quite a few to get through you will recall). We all congratulated each other for a very good race well sailed. Little Mark had got some excellent photos and footage (to YouTube link follow soon, hopefully). After the first beer, we took the main down, and celebrated with a second round of beers. Amanda Hargraves then lost an under garment over the side of The Guarantee. As they turned around to retrieve it we went back into the lead for the second time, and so were first onto the mooring in Tawa Bay.

 

Photos by Mark Holmes and Mark Ansell.

[Guest]

The Guarantee and then Montego Bay III, then Caro Vita and CU Later joined us. Some beers were consumed, stories were exchanged, ribbing occurred, snacks were consumed, music was played. At some point I was aware of Loloma, Blue Magic, Wai Aniwa, Espirit (with all of her crew still on board) and other boats joining the raft up. There I think 14 boats in the raft up at one point.

 

Photos by Mark Holmes and Mark Ansell.

[Guest]

Loloma and Espirit and many others joined us...

 

Photos by Mark Holmes and Mark Ansell.

[Guest]

Little Mark was hoisted up the mast in the bosun's chair to get photos from near the top of the rig.

[Guest]

Beer made way for rum, and Clear Vision instituted a rum tax - anyone crossing Clear Vision to get across the raft up had to stop and drink a rum with us, which we would graciously provide. One of the unintended consequences of our rum tax policy was that we seemed to have a lot of people wanting to cross over Clear Vision.

 

Things began to gradually become less ordered and my vision was becoming less and less clear. Banana-Boy was eagerly aiding and abetting this process with his bottle of Jagermiester. Apparently the boomerang of karma returned in the wee small hours of the morning and he was known to have fed the fishes partially processed Jagermiester and Porterhouse Steak burgers from Clear Vision catering.

 

Photos by Mark Holmes and Mark Ansell.

[Guest]

Special mention must be made of the boats who did dress up for the “dress for the age of your boat” theme:

 

Waianawa – fantastic trippy rerun 70’s hippie crew

Loloma - superb 1909 turnout by Phillipa Durkin and John Floyd and “pirate elvis” Ben Amorously yours...

Clear Vision's own effort was lead by an excellent 1986 peter Gabriel “sledgehammer” trains revolving around his head outfit by Little Mark. I had threatened to do a 1986 Richard Simmons number but it was vetoed by the concerned residents association.

 

The next morning progress was glacial. Everybody was moving very slowly... Banana-Boy was initially rating himself as just a 1.6 on the 0 - 10 wellometer scale. However Vesna's famous egg-pizzas and croissants, coffee and fresh orange and mango juice lifted spirits sufficiently for us to be last off the mooring and motoring in the heavy rain for Picton. A very splendid race and an extraordinarily fun raft up and party was capped of by an entertaining game of Tichu on the ferry home.

 

Photos by Mark Holmes and Mark Ansell.

[Guest]

And the Clear Vision video courtesy of Tony Wells and Mark Holmes with additional camera work from Mark Ansell and Tony's Mum on the shore...

 

[smithy09 50]

Kiwi_Bardy. You have outdone yourself. One of the best Race write ups I have read. Nice job.

Gotta be worth Rum Squid????

[smithy09 50]

Albino Carbon main indeed!!!