Simrad 60

[Marshy 30]

Firstly a big thanks to the guys from SSANZ from the team on mercenary. A job well done, was a tough call as to when to start us but it worked out to be a very enjoyable sail in the end. Alot of upwind work but was still great.

 

On Mercenary we had a mixed bag, bit early for the start so we gybed around and did a circle, but forgot how light it was and how long that would take! Bugger...

 

Rattle rolled out their big zero and took off, putting a monster jump on us. We just had to try and hold on with ours while we could. Then the upwind to Gannet along Waiheke i dont think we gained at all, but just tried to survive without the other shorthaul boats getting through us. Rounding Gannet we hoisted the gennaker - but the breeze came aft so we did the nicest peel that boat has ever seen! two handed masthead gennaker to masthead spinnaker (Good work on the bow Rob!) Then as we got past rakino the breeze lightened and went forward so just after Tits had packed the gennaker into its bag we wanted it back up again! We did well along this little stretch tight pressed with the big green hulk up.

 

Coming into Tiri we noticed the Rattle had stopped and wondered what had gone wrong, they had weed and were backing up. This gave us just the outsiders hope of pulling something off and suddenly Rob and I had our motivation back. We settled in and were doing well on the rattle and even crossed ahead along the east coast bays. Only to be stupid and let them stick one more board into the bays and gain back on us.

 

Coming up to North head we had some big boats coming through so we stayed high to discorage them rolling us. As a product of that and an attempt to stay out of the tide we ended up very very close (Wouldnt want to be any closer or we would walk home) to North head. Thinking we were dog tucker we never really parked up and managed to sneak through with less tide and managed to get starboard rights on Rattle n Rum. From there it was just a case of defend like never before... We crossed the line and the gun went off. Quite suprising and not the result i picked when we went around tiri but very happy! The boat was going like a rocket on the wind in that breeze!

 

Overall a great day and im almost recovered now - Body is a touch sore haha

[B00B00 310]

Nice work Marshy, thats a great result.

[col j 0]

quarter pint...what a match race n a few more. mixed results all day but went our way in the end. yippie.

 

balls up no.1 crap start. million boats to pass that are now well gone. get going. and balls up no.2 happens. nathan biffs one of our winchandles overboard....down to 1 now. moment of brilliance no.1 Energy picks it up. sh!t hot. we get burried and suffer. tack out, cross behind energy who biffs our handle back at us. legend. still well back from the other 1/4 tons. ugh. ghost along for a bit, get a chute up for 5 mins up the north west end of waiheke that takes us barreling to the front where we dont stay. nathan biffs his sunnies over the side. 4th round gannet feck. all those buggers below us got lifted up.

 

infiltrator proceeds to do a horizon with a mh bag i think? we couldn't see them they were so far gone. luffing dules from gannet to rakino. we sheak ahead. lift up almost to course as soon as we get past it. i think infiltrator would be getting killed and probably over the other side. settle in for a few hours with overdraft and quick nik right on our hip. doing my head in. bla bla we were first when it counted.

 

that delay to the start let me straighten out the windex wands too. scairy.

[Guest]

Classic. does it count as outside assistance if someone picks up your winch handle?

[col j 0]

surely not. anybody could have been in our situation. and if it does then everyone else had outside assistance from a certain tracker that held us up and didnt actually got on to finish the race.

[ex Elly 197]

Some close battles to get the gun, only a few seconds difference after 10 hours racing!!

 

In the multis Triple 8 beat Charleston by 6 seconds.

In the sports boats Mercenary beat RattleNRum by 34 seconds.

In the 727s Quarter Pint beat Overdraft by 90 seconds.

[Guest]

Cheers to all the organizers for a great race, hard one to get started but ended up being a glamour day!

 

We had a bit of a slow start on Sudden Impulse but then got into the groove once we got through the channel, one of the lucky lifters out to gannet and see if we can make up some time on the downwind as we were a well behind our main competetion. Staying right was paying large so we gybed down the right side and made some good time through a few of the boats that stuck left. Came round flat a little slow but got the old girl back in the groove for the trip home. Not knowing who we were chasing we were most suprised to end up in a bit of a dual with Young Rebel ( Nice boat lads ) coming into the finish. A great result for us and good to see 5 Young 11's out there racing, probably secong best to Noumea

[Guest]

Started thinking if the wind went east enough to block the use of Code 0's and stayed super duper soft we may just have an outside chance of a race. Bugger, knot to be and the lead boats already had a mile on us by the time we got to Issy Bay. Missed getting thru the cluster f*ck at the top of Waiheke by literally 10 to 20mts. 2 SR's only 20mts from us got thru, we didn't so spent a long time drifting back towards to the startline. Finally drifted out of that growing parked up fleet in time to hear boats in our Div were already around Gannet. Oh crap, we've knot even covered 7nms and we are over 9.5nms behind still looking at Matiatia. Saw Erazer in our patch of glass like water also and they sneak out of it just after us.

 

Lost Erazer after that unless it's them with a incredibly loud kite with fluro pink in it, in which case they had a good run up to Navy pulling a lot of ground out of us.

 

Bimbled down to Gannet, kite up and bimbled to Tiri, bimbled home.

 

Highlights -

A pod of Dolphins playing with us 1/2 the Gannet to Navy leg. One getting cocked up and slamming into our rudder, freaked it as much as it did me probably.

Finishing the same day we started. At one stage, after our fleet was mostly already around Gannet, we pulled out the GPS which was saying we still had 8hr 40mins before we even got to Gannet.... that wasn't at all nice.

Seeing a boat in our Div on the finishline. Hadn't managed to see one, even with Binos, since Erazer 7 hours earlier.

 

Lowlights -

Being 20mts too south at the top of Waiheke.

MASSIVE sail area envy.

 

Tips corner -

To a certain Young boat, you know who you are, Yes you ya cheeky flashers Even if you have sails far better sized to feck all wind and were faster you still have to aim it in the right direction (yeap, that poorly placed tack in to the full tidal flow), sail to your strengths and watch you aren't so easily played with, notice how after you rolled us we got you to slow down to our speed which allowed us time to plot revenge? Think about that and how we did it so you don't let that happen again, it shouldn't have ended as it did. In the immortal words of Darth I think he would have said 'You didn't use your power advantage wisely Luke'. And we'd like to say sorry about the finishline but we both know that would be utter bullshit 1-1 and 1 left to go.

 

The call on the day as a whole -

Very frustrating, very relaxed and the most uneventful Simrad we've ever had........... while both Wa's were home mowing lawns. Oh Yes

 

The Big Ups call for the day -

The RC holding off starting until some wind arrived. Good call team.

 

The WTF?? call for the day -

Is the RC using a start gun or a 105mm Howitzer?? Shite that bugger was LOUD!!!!!

[wal 27]

Think we delaminated the decks with the reverberation.........

 

When one of them went off it blew a beauty smoke ring about 700mm across. Floated away rising downwind til we lost sight of it

 

Most impressive

[Guest]

Feck, I think you probably de-laminated a few ear drums as well

 

We shouldn't have started at the boat end, the gun went and brown stuff nearly fell into my undies

[candela 0]

Candela

 

As everyone else has said thanks to the race committee. Great job as usual.

 

We had a mixed race. Started great in clear air, worked our way to windward and got a good jump on most of the other boats. About then it all went bad for a while and ended up on the wrong side of the wind line and watch some other boats disappear. Managed to get going again and had a great run to Gannet over taking a couple of boats on the way.

 

From Gannet we were chasing Bays flyer hard and slowly pulling it back. Had 3 great sail changes from spinnaker to gennaker to Genoa and got to about 3-4 min off the back of them.

 

We then had a great run from Rakino to the finish, got past a couple more boats but did not manage to get Bays flyer but only by about a minute.

 

all in a good race with a reasonably good result. Third on line and second on both PHRF and general handicap. The next should be a cracker the points are really close

[candela 0]

For got to say we had dolphins with us for most of the away from Gannet to Rakino. So nice cruising along with them playing beside us

[col j 0]

yes. also had dolphins they left us alone somewhere west of rangi light. the buggers would swim under the boat and id feel the helm vibrating. wouldn't even give us a push.

[candela 0]

You are obviously not talking to them right!!!! How to think we manged to make up time. It is definitely not our sailing skills

[Rental 1]

This race was the first time that Booboo wished he still had a SR.

 

It was not Rental weather.

 

After some great socialising around a few of the boys and scabbing a cold beer or two off big boats that carry lead and fridges – thanks Slut/Red and Mushy/Grunta we lined up for our start with the decision to stay in the right where possible.

 

After a small discussion with the boys on Taeping at the boat end, we agreed to make room for them in return they agreed to sail under us, no shouting, no flags, no arguing just a gentleman’s agreement. (Also the multi handicapper was on Taeping)

 

We stayed in the right and it seemed to pay off, although Hyper took a dig out right did even better, we sailed over the other 8.5’s that were closer to Rangi and were leading 8.5 at Motuihe passage. Things started to go down hill from there.

 

We got caught in the park up on the end of Waiheke and with the tide change and no wind sat around while those that had go there 10min earlier took off to Gannet. Attitude & Voom wriggled out and jumped to a 1 mile lead while we sat & sat & sat. Finally we got going and then decided that although it suxed, right might be the way to go and tacked in while Voom headed out.

 

Finally it went right and we got the code zero on. We chased the Voom that had tacked back in and was only now ½ a mile ahead. Then in a 10kt gust the prod fitting let go and the prod and zero ended up back on the tramp. Sails down motor on and back home

 

Well done to the boys on Hyper for taking the win by a huge margin !!

[Richard2249 5]

Race report from Norseman II on the Smallboat course

 

After finally getting away on a delayed start it was frustrating to see the park up off the end of Waiheke. These are starting to become a feature of the series over the last couple of years! Once we got through that and tacked out to sea a bit, it was a gentle lay through up to Gannet Rk – Scottie convinced me to resist the temptation to tack closer to shore, and became clear that it paid to stay left, and to avoid the port tack into oblivion. The wind swing to the south –east further up the track meant that we were able to lay up to Gannet with room to spare in a slightly increased breeze, rounding right on sunset just ahead of a group including Bays Flyer and Jim Beam. We also came across one of the multi’s at Gannet (Akarana Express?) – we had watched them earlier head off to take the southern track around Waiheke which was an interesting call, and followed a bit of a discussion on that idea during the week on another thread (in Saturday’s conditions they proved it didn’t work!)

 

The kite reach back to Rakino didn’t last very long, and we had to change back to the headsail somewhere around D’urville Rocks (I really should put them into the GPS as a waypoint, had a nervous moment or two trying to spot the beacon). The dolphin escort was a nice touch, surprised they hung around so long as I don’t think we were creating much of a bow wave for them. The sail home from Rakino was quite enjoyable, reasonably smooth water and full sail breeze - almost a lay through along the south Rangi shore, but we threw in a couple of digs inshore to get out of the tide. We took a very close line up the East Coast Bays, with lots of right hander ‘bullets’ of breeze to keep us high on course despite the strong outgoing tide and out of the way of the big boats coming through. We tacked up by Bastion buoy for the finish and crossed at 11.06, not as late as we thought it might be when we were stuck off Waiheke earlier in the day. Comfortably Numb hung in there after getting stranded with the other Trackers and a few others around Owhanake and came in a bit later for 2nd.

 

Thanks again to SSANZ for putting on such a good race.

 

Some random photos attached.

[Guest]

After a small discussion with the boys on Taeping at the boat end, we agreed to make room for them in return they agreed to sail under us, no shouting, no flags, no arguing just a gentleman’s agreement. (Also the multi handicapper was on Taeping)

 

 

 

 

We are all for fair trade agreements.

 

We were having a blinder of a race with charleston, 888 and ourselves. Motohuie chanel with the code zero flying a hull and just charging through the fleet was a heap of fun. 888 and charleston rounded ganet rock in front. we passed charleston as they were slow to get their kite up but they had passed us again by flat rock. 888 dropped thier kite and went to the screecher and were sailing high angles. We later found out they had put the kite up back to front. this gave us an oportunity to pass the big black beast. not sure why it took so long for them to get it back on around the right way. We were looking good around flat rock and that island. crossed tacks a couple of times with 888 whilst charleston stayed further inshore. we were feeling good about our result until we tacked at bean rock to come up the ditch to the finish and then that green pitch fork poped out of the darkness so we had to do some covering tacks. well done to them as at flat rock we couldn't even see them. Had an absolute ball.

[Guest]

Marshall Law

 

Well done to the SSANZ team, they made some good calls and we got a great sail out of day that was marginal at best.

 

After a sociable two hour wait (thanks to Wishbone for the milk - John was hanging out for his morning coffee - there's a bottle of Mount Gay at Norths for you) we finally got away. Mind you with one minute's warning to a 5 minute gun we had to motor to the line as we were probably more than 6 minutesd sailing away. Motor off at the five and drift to the line. I was trying to avoid other boats as Smithy didn't want scratches in his paint job, but it was a small line and a lot of boats, came out unscathed but quite ordinary.

Nice sail to the end of Waiheke, trying to get away from others and get clear air. Then the big hole. The bigger faster boats seemed to get through all right, we were held up for a few minutes but chose to go wide and I think escaped the worst of it, others inshore and behind us looked a bit tragic.

Lifted all the way to Gannet and didn't have to tack - yay. Rounded just behind Flojo and Whitebait.

Lovely gentle kite ride to Flat Rock, one incident with a ship mentioned elsewhere, went all the way to the lay line on Stbd figuring there would be more pressure out there, I think it worked??? Got to Flat Rock just after dark close to Nosaka and Truxton and a bunch of others we couldn't identify.

Not our cleanest kite drop as the wind had gone right quite dramatically so we were shy reaching in to the mark.

WInd went very light behind Motuora for a bit, lots of boats around but no idea who they were. Easy lay through to Tiri. A lot of boats tacked in to the beach early, we went further and tacked in to abou tthe south end of Long Bay, Coppelia (easy to identify with that stripe) crossed ahead, we tacked on their hip then took nearly till Cheltenham to get our nose in front - boy they make that thing go fast, even when we were gassing them they wouldn't let go.

Couple of tacks and cross the linwe just after midnight.

 

Had a ball.

[Guest]

Couple of tacks and cross the linwe just after midnight.

 

Had a ball.

Gezz Smithy, what are you peeps doing? We finished the day before your boat did by 20mins odd but it was still saturday

[Guest]

But you took a shortcut