The Great Roast Pursuit on Nedax Racing

[Guest]

I had a major conundrum early last week arising out of a very annoying scheduling clash.

 

The Phoenix were playing their first A League final at the ring of Fire kicking off at 8pm on Friday night. Unfortunately the RPNYC Kapiti Island race kicked off at 9pm, and I could not do both. My Yellow Fever friends were mocking me for even considering missing the game, and my yachting friends were mocking me for even considering missing the Kapiti race. I was hoping Huey would help me out by blowing hard on Friday night, causing the race start to be postponed. This was something I was especially keen on given that our naviguesser had guaranteed me downwind sailing all the way...

 

By mid-week the conundrum was unresolved, but there was hope emerging that Huey may indeed come to my rescue... surprisingly not due to him being too boisterous, but in fact from him not showing up at all. The forecast was for very light winds on Friday and Saturday, and consequently the Race committee was considering shortening the course. If they did so, there was no need to leave Friday night to get the race away, and everyone back to Wellington by Sunday evening, so it was possible that the start would be delayed until Saturday morning. Hoo-HAR!! That would allow unrestrained Nix shenanigans on Friday night AND a weekend sailing the sparkling waters of Cook Strait! So I took a punt and purchased my ticket for the football.

 

It turned out the planets all aligned, and the start was rescheduled for Saturday morning at 0930. Friday night was fantastic, with the Nix beating Bling FC (Sydney) 3 -2 and advancing to the second week of the playoffs. The harbour was indeed mirror flat and glassy when I got home at midnight, and I fell asleep very thankful that we had not had to set off at 9pm. I would have been miserable sitting becalmed in Lambton harbour listening to the noise of the crowd at the stadium.

 

Saturday dawned clear and still, and after packing my dry bag, making some roast beef rolls, having some breakfast and feeding Vader I headed down to the marina slightly late. I needn't have rushed, as the start had been delayed for a further hour, and the course shortened to Wellington - Ship Cove direct. So we set the boat up, stacked the sails, loaded the critical supplies...

 

 

 

...and we were ready to rock. We had a crew of six for the race:

 

Tony: Helm

Craig: Naviguesser and foredeck

Bardy: main

Jayden: trimming & mast

Andrew: trimming

Nev: Keyboards and trim.

 

Out in the pre-start area Wedgetail was trying to manoeuvre, but it was light...

 

 

Very very light...

 

 

We started near the middle of the line and headed towards the Oriental Bay shore on port tack. Wedgetail was to leeward of us:

 

 

While Gucci, Andiamo, Prime Mover and Montego Bay III were all towards the northern end of the line:

 

 

Superlicious was in his element, and we held position relative to Wedgetail and lifted up in front of the other 4 boats. Just before we got to Point Jerningham, Wedgetail, ahead and leeward of us knocked noticeably, and we took the chance to tack and cross in front of Andiamo.

 

 

In the extreme light airs it took what felt like forever to get going again after the tack. We were calling the speed build and celebrating tenths of a knot: 0.8... 0.9... 1 KNOT!!! We sniffed out some breeze which did not seem to fill in closer to Point Jerningham where Wedgetail and Andiamo had ventured. We tacked back and crossed them both

 

 

... and Tony was pretty happy when Wedgetail tacked in behind us.

 

 

Wedgetail spotted some breeze beginning to fill in at the top of Evans Bay

 

 

and they headed hard right looking to be first into the new breeze.

 

 

It paid dividends for them. We were caught out to the left, and were last to get the new breeze. When it did finally come in Wedgetail got into it first:

 

 

We were waiting, waiting, always waiting for it to get to us, and were muttering away as our lead disappeared, and Montego Bay III came storming up and past us in the new Southerly breeze.

 

 

In fact, the Montego Bay III charge took them to within a few lengths of Wedgetail and Andiamo who had parked in the lee of Mirimar Peninsula in Kau Bay. In the post race drinks and reminiscing session later that night the guys off Andiamo indicated that at about the time this photo was taken...

 

 

...their Montego Bay III warning light had gone from a slow, irregular flashing rythym to a rapid bright red pulse!

 

We stayed wide of Kau Bay in the hope of sailing around these three, but unfortunately (for us at least) the breeze filled in for them just as we thought we were going to wriggle free again and Wedgetail and Andiamo were off again just in front of us.

 

 

We headed out of the harbour hard on the wind with Superlicious and a full main as the breeze settled in at about 8 knots to 10 knots true. The wind was persistently trending right, starting SSE but SW by the time we got to the entrance to the harbour, and the nowcasting service was indicating it was WSW at Karori rock. We tried to head right on every small knock we got, but they were few and far between so we eventually just bit the bullet and set up on the right hand edge.

 

We were concentrating hard...

 

 

... and spirits were lifted by what turned out to be the first of four extended dolphin encounters for this trip. It's a funny thing, but EVERYONE just seems to end up smiling when you see dolphins.

 

 

 

The beat to Sinclair head took a long, long, LONG time. We broke up the tedium by almost going to full fisticuffs with a guy who was fishing in his fizz boat. He was anchored and standing in his boat jigging. We were crawling along at about 4 knots - hardly threatening closing speeds. We could see his anchor line out the front of his boat. Admittedly it wasn't pulled tight and heading straight down... it gradually dropped below the surface several metres out in front of his bow. We briefly discussed whether we were going to clear him, but decided we would... easily. And we did. We passed within about 50 metres of him. Just at the point where we thought he'd wave, or perhaps we would, and say "How's it going mate?" he sneers at us in a thick Scottish accent:

 

"Close enough are you!?"

 

I replied: "What are you on about mate, we're miles away?"

 

And he shouts back "For F***s Sake! There's a whole F***ing Ocean. You don't need to risk hitting my boat!"

 

At which point we felt the need to retort further. Comments were passed regarding the size of his manhood, his amphetamine intake levels, his origin, his presence here fishing in OUR country, and some creative suggestions about what he could do in the privacy of his own home with a cheese grater.

 

He was still waving his arms and yelling at us when we were over 300 metres away. We had a giggle. They're out there... you never know where, but they are.

 

Wedgetail and Andiamo had gotten a bit of a jump on us, and this was a concern... not merely because of the race, and our competitive desire to do well, but also because Tony told us he had given Andiamo two boned out lamb leg roasts which they were going to cook and have waiting for us when we finished. Keeping Andiamo close was now doubly important - we didn't want to be so far behind that they had time to eat all the lamb before we arrived. We were in pursuit of the roast!

 

As we slowly made our way across the South coast to Sinclair Head we discussed how we did not want to fall into the trap of getting in too close to Sinclair Head, as our experience told us there would be a vacuum in against the cliffs there in a light variable southerly. However the wind was still persistently shifting to the West, which meant digs into the coast line were being rewarded, and for the time being the pressure was in near the land too.

 

We had tried three times to clear Sinclair Head but each time we headed west we sailed out of pressure and into a really big knock, so we'd tack back and head south again.

 

Prime Mover and Montego Bay III managed to get in very close to the coast just prior to Sinclair Head:

 

 

They hooked into the other side of the knock we kept butting into and tension rose as they were soon 45 degrees higher than us and in good pressure, while we were struggling to maintain progress as the seas became confused in the tidal rip around Sinclair. Just when it was looking like we'd lost out on the wrong side of the wind again, we tacked over and tried to clear Sinclair for the 4th time... and just as we did Montego Bay III and Prime Mover fell off their lift and into the hole we'd been trying to go around. At the same time we hooked into some Southerly Pressure, and we were off. At last.

 

There are always stunning views along this part of the coast:

 

 

We hoisted the Super Xero (the huge 80 m2 Code zero we fly off the tip of the prod)

 

 

... and this helped pull us through the slop of the left over Sinclair rip, and then once into flatter water we set up the A2+ and changed to that and began heading for the brothers. With the Downwind sails up morale improved. It improved more when we cracked open some ice cold beers, and further still when we turned the stereo on. A few "Where would you rather be?"s were exchanged...

 

 

 

Slowly our speed picked up. It needed to too, because while we were stuffing around trying to get past Sinclair Head Wedgetail and Andiamo and disappeared off into the distance. Our levels of roast separation anxiety were extreme. We could still see Andiamo, but she had a few too many miles on us for our liking.

 

Soon we we doing 7 knots across the ground. We had been concerned that due to the very slow start that we would struggle to get past The Brothers because now when we got there we'd be pushing a very significant adverse tidal flow. But the now casting was saying there was 18 knots of breeze at The Brothers, so we we hopeful that if that held we'd be able to sneak around into Queen Charlotte Sound after all. You can get 6+ knots of tide there, so it's not a good place to be in light winds if you are trying to go against the tide.

 

As we headed towards The Brothers we were joined by a pod of about 40 dolphins for our second Dolphin encounter of the trip. This one lasted for over half an hour and they really put on a show for us. Smiles all round.

 

 

 

 

 

We carried the A2+ all the way to Cape Koamaru, with our speeds topping out at 13.4 knots in one of the better gusts.

 

 

 

 

 

As we approached Cape Koamaru we could see a very very big shiny patch on the water in the lee of Arapawa Island. It was a BIG windshadow hole. Morale leapt as we rounded Cape Koamaru and saw Andiamo becalmed just 250 metres in front of us, and Wedgetail only JUST starting to move on the other side of the hole, about another 250 metres further into Queen Charlotte Sound. In a crucial moment, our whole crew were momentarily frozen in their tracks as the distinct waft of roasting lamb wafted down to us from Andiamo! The roast! It was cooking!

 

Opinion was divided as to what we should do. One faction wanted to be bold, like Groupama, and gybe back out to sea and go the long way round the north and west of White rocks and try to sail around the hole. This faction had the advantage of being backed by the owner, the helmsman and the provider of Lamb Roasts. The other faction merely had their good looks and nous to back them up, and they were steadfastly against the gybe option, and instead pointed to a thin finger of pressure right in close to Cape Koamaru along the shore line INSIDE the start of the windshadow hole. It was counter intuitive to think that there would be pressure between the island and the windshadow, but it sure did look like that was the case.

 

Tony told us we were nuts, and told us to get ready to gybe. There was some thought of a rebellion, and the unity that binds our close knit crew together in times of stress (like when we run out of rum) nearly shattered. However some creative time wasting tactics "No wait a sec, we're not quite ready to gybe mate..." meant we had suddenly gone to far to gybe out of the hole and the only option was to heat it up... strangely this meant we were heading right at the finger of breeze in near the shore line. We dropped the A2+ and hoisted the Super Xero, and Nedax just kept keeping on going - like she could smell the break through.

 

The gybing faction got increasingly agitated, and the good looks and nous faction kept urging patience. Eventually we gybed as part of our "try not to put the boat on the rocks" risk mitigation strategy, and BOOM SHANKA we were through the hole having only been slowed for 5 or 6 minutes, We took off. In a NORTHERLY. There was a huge back eddy in the wind and we'd wriggled through to the inside of it. We were doing 6.5 knots straight at the finish line tight reaching on starboard in a Northerly, following along on exactly the same heading as Andiamo in front of us who was hard on the wind in a Southerly.

 

We furled the Super Xero as we hit the transition back into the Southerly and auto tacked from Starboard to Port without changing course. Initially we held just the medium number 1 and main, but later we redeployed the Super Xero and romped to the finish of Motuara Island as the sun was setting. We finished about 20 minutes behind Andiamo and around 40 behind Wedgetail who we passed as they headed back out to Cape Koamaru for the early trip home.

 

We packed up and motored off in pursuit of Andiamo, and the roast lamb, who we had seen turning into Resolution Bay as we were approaching the finish. Rum was poured, and beers were drunk, and we kinda lost concentration and aborted the entrance to Resolution Bay and set a course for Endeavour inlet instead. Just as we rounded the headland out of the southern end of Resolution Bay, Andiamo called us on the radio and asked us where the heck we thought we were going... and didn't we want any lamb?

 

We headed back. Not to Andiamo immediately it must be noted... the naviguesser suggested that we head for a jetty light in the southern corner of Resolution Bay as he'd seen Andiamo anchor there once before. When it became clear looking at the chart plotter and up at the "anchor light" we thought we could see, and reconciling the two pictures, that this was indeed a jetty light and not a Davidson 55, we altered course towards the flashing torch in the northern arm of the bay. It turned out that was Andiamo. And what a pleasant welcome it was when, now in complete darkness, we tied up next to her with the Milky way in it's full glory above our heads, the smell of roasted lamb filling our nostrils and smiling faces of fellow yachties welcoming us in.

 

Sneaky Pete had worked his culinary magic in the galley of Andiamo and along with the 4.4 kgs of roast lamb (there was NO WAY Andiamo's crew of 6 could have eaten it all before we got there, even with our detour half way to Endeavour Inlet) there were parsnips, carrots, potatoes for Africa, spinach and cheesy sauce and gravy. Oh lordy, did it taste good.

 

Montego Bay III and Gucci came and joined the raft up. Some rum, and some beer was consumed, in moderation, of course. Startlingly, some was even spilled. Some tales were told, and I frankly fear for the virtue of a certain nun in Auckland. A number of problems were solved, particularly some relating to the sensible running of yacht clubs and communications with members. A wedding was planned, deals were wheeled, and paint featured heavily in much of the discussion. And because we're all older and less reckless than we may have been in years gone by everything was relatively civilised really.

 

I headed off to bed at around midnight, and made myself a bed in the VMG SLX kite. As I was snuggling up, and the last of Nedax's crew were beginning to snore, the crew of Andiamo showed that while they may indeed be older and less reckless, they still had some mischief in their veins as they placed all of the empty beer bottles (which we had hoped to donate to them) on their deck and let them roll one by one down their deck onto our deck and onto our cockpit floor. It was funny at first, but at about the 25th bottle it was less so.

 

During the night whenever someone got up to pee the boat would rock and the bottles would all roll around and clink together. When we got up to be the first boat from the raft up to set off at 3.30am I got a rubbish bag and put all the beer bottles and tops into it. As we were casting off I said to Craig that it would be churlish of us not to leave the bag of bottles in Andiamo's cockpit, wouldn't it? He agreed. I thought Nev showed considerable maturity in choosing to leave the bottles AND the bag in their cockpit. I was expecting that we'd keep the bag...

 

Ordinarily the trip home would have been a low key uneventful motor sail back across the strait under a starlit sky. It was, mostly... but in the depths of the night we ran over some bull kelp which wrapped itself around the prop and choked the engine to a stop. We put it in reverse and as we backed up a massive amount of kelp did float free. Not all of it it turns out, but enough that we could motor home on about half power. Which was good, because just after dawn we were rejoined by a huge pod of 50+ dolphins for another 30 minute enocunter. This was followed by and even bigger pod for even longer in the glassy waters of Lyall Bay. All in all a pretty spectacular way to end a spectacular way to spend a weekend.

 

Good times.

 

There is a video coming, but I have run into technical problems between Quicktime Pro and Youtube. Grrrrr. It's not working despite me following all of the instructions on how to export from Quicktime for Youtube listed here: http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/a ... p;hl=en-GB. The bloody thing uploads, but then won't process, complaining about being an incorrect file format. I am sure I will figure it out eventually.

[Megwyn 2]

Awesome write up kb

Keep 'em coming!

[Guest]

*slump*

 

I am ready to scream.

 

I've just spent 8 hours working on the video with Quicktime Pro.

 

I completely redid it from scratch.

 

I have solved the unable to upload to Youtube problem, but now ny 6 minute 8 second video (550MB) that plays perfectly in Quicktime Player, after taking AGES to export and then upload only shows the last 1 minute 8 second section of the original video.

 

I even tried opening the 6 minute version, selecting all, and pasting it as one section into a brand new file and re-exporting it and reuploading it.

 

Grrrrrr.

[Megwyn 2]

That is very frustrating KB. I really am not that much of a techie, so really cannot help, but offer you condolences and hope you are able to sort it out.

Soon.

[Guest]

FINALLY... the video:

 

 

Many thanks to Dave Roberts for the assistance in getting it into a format youtube was happy with.