Whitianga Harbour conditions

[JK 28]

Does anyone have any experience/local knowledge of racing at Whitianga? What does the tide/current/wind do etc... Just wondering if anyone has any useful snippets with the Opti Nats coming up there in a couple of weeks.

[Deep Purple 511]

Usually pretty good, it's a nice body of water (mercury bay) but last weekend it was white water all the way to centre island. biggest waves i have ever seen there.

 

there were optis racing then, they launched them from the north of brodies beach. of 70 boats 25 some were seasick.

[MrWolf 0]

Did a couple of 3.7 nationals and a Sunburst contest.

 

shifty days are very shifty but there are plenty of steady days as well.

 

Ingoing current draws you in a straight line from where ever you are to the mouth of the river/harbour.

There is not a lot of shallow water around the fringes so playing the current when its against you is very important.

 

The outgoing current is not as well defined in direction (but obviously is pushing out in the general direction from the river/harbour, but there are some back currents).

 

There is a noticable slackening of the current for a good 1.5 hours at the top and bottom of the tide, and it fair races for the middle two or so hours.

 

In 3.7s I'd say local knowledge was crucial to doing well.

 

So in the Sunbursts local knowledge was absolute gold, much as I would expect it to be in Opti's or p's.

[JK 28]

SD, only one person from the club went down for the pre-nats last weekend but reported that they were having difficulty seeing the sprit of another Opti if it was on the other side of a wave & as they could not see the start boat there were a few general recalls & sitting around waiting for restarts. He reported he was retching whilst reaching.

[Guest]

I grew up there and was shocked recently to see how shallow the bay has become all the way to Centre Island. Even moderate swells now form quite large waves in the middle of the bay. Once upon a time you could rely on the outgoing to sweep right around the beach but the bar is 20 times bigger now so I don't know whether it still does.