In the footsteps of Te Rauparaha

[Guest]

Unencumbered by the additional penalty weight of any roasts The Brothers Race turned out to be an Andiamo benefit. But the legend of Nedax's trek in the footsteps of Te Rauparaha starts well before the Davidson 55 began showing the fleet a clean pair of heels.

 

The week started with the usual Expedition Projection email from Craig promising down hill sailing all the way to AND from The Brothers under sunny skies.

 

In fact the prediction included:

The Wx forecast is looking like a good 15-20 knot sthly easing late afternoon to 15 knots; See below for detail

 

So it looks like a good run to the Brothers with the big gear up ( perhaps spinnaker?) and a beat on the way home. Estimated time is 10 hours so expect to be back around 6.30 -7.00 ( the board room bar is open from 7.00 )

 

 

and

 

 

I responded to this bold prediction as follows:

 

Just a couple of questions arise from your work Craig...

 

1. The table below indicates that from 10.37 - 11.54 we won't have any sail up (except I assume the main), and that the target boatspeed during this period is projected to be the highest. So, if being bareheaded is fastest, (a) why don't we just go bare-headed the whole time? and ( how come Tony's spent so much money on such a large selection of fore-sails?

 

2. Have we fitted the wheels to the boat? The forecast route appears to involve an overland section from just north of Terawhiti to Cable Bay. If we're now 4WD enabled, why don't we just go up Evans Bay and through Rongotai to Lyall Bay? Is that because of the overhead powerlines or something?

 

Just trying to be helpful...

 

Bardy.

 

Craig's response set the tone for the race's banter:

 

Ahh good spotting.

 

Expedition is so good that it already knows that during the peel , sail drop we have made a monumental screw up and have wrapped the kite around the forestay. It also predicts that the bowman blames the keyboards who in turn knows that it was the driver...again...

 

Any hooo then we are hit by the gusts going up the wind factory and despite being bareheaded with three crew on the deck we accidentally hit the famous "4th mode " which is usually beyond just simple planning ... You can research the 4th mode there is quite a lot written about it but very seldom seen.

 

The route over Terawhiti hasn't been done for a while. Te Rauparaha first perfected this route and Expedition still favours this style of portage, especially when Wedgetail and Andiamo are so intent on following our line...

 

Anyways. I'm not sure that you're quite ready for the Navigators secret handshake which would allow me to further explain the subtleties of Expedition ........

 

C

 

It was clear that we were going to be travelling in the footsteps of Te Rauparaha...

 

We (well, most of us) arrived at the boat at 7.00am as requested and began setting up for the race:

 

 

and Dusty the 8th man was helping too...

 

 

Further down the pier Team Clear Vision were prepping too:

 

 

At the end of the Great Roast Pursuit, Tony admitted that his 10 yr old Dubarry sea boots had seen better days. The soles had significant structural integrity issues, but the ventilation rating was high on both boots. In the two weeks since he'd splashed out on some emulsion and was proud to show that there was now a few more miles left in the old boots yet...

 

 

Knowing that the day was going to involve a fair amount of jostling and banter Fletch decided to strike silently and early. He attached the furler to the head of the fractional code zero, and the head swivel to the tack, but being careful not be vulnerable to being identified as solely responsible for an upside down hoist, he drew Craig into his web of deceit and got Craig to insert the pins to complete the attachments. In this way the Fantasy-land crew set the Adventure-land team up for the first cock up of the day.

 

Perhaps sensing that team unity was under threat, Tony made a selfless play at this point. As we got ready to hoist the fractional code zero he proclaimed that it was to be set up running from the tip of the prod to the fractional halyard. More than one of us questioned this. Craig was adamant that that would be a crazy aspect to design a fractional zero for, and some of us were SURE it flew from the stub. But Tony promised us he was right. He guaranteed it.

 

So the Doctor George obeyed the instructions from Fantasy-land, and with 15 minutes to go to the start we hoisted the fractional code zero and began unfurling it. There were two problems with the set-up. The numbers were upside down, and the 'head' was not fully at the fractional halyard exit point on the mast. Tony conceded that his guarantee that it should fly from the tip of the prod may not have been on the money. All in all we decided it was a far from ideal initial deployment and agreed to start over. We were just hoping that no one had caught this embarrassment on film...

 

The clock was ticking, and we were far from set up for the perfect start. With 30 seconds to the gun we didn't have a foresail up.

 

There were 9 starters for the 2012 RPNYC The Brothers Race. Andiamo, Wedgetail, Montego Bay III, Gucci, Clear Vision, Midnight Express, Nedax Racing, Am Mer and The Racing Yacht Waianiwa.

 

Clear Vision and ourselves had set up at the Northern end of the start line with the rest of the fleet grouping at the windward Southern end. CV got a great start and were already several boat-lengths ahead of us as we hoisted the number 3 headsail as the gun went. It was quite light, and we hoped that Te Rauparaha would have approved of our choice of starting away from the lighter winds in Oriental bay.

 

Some urgent remedial work by the Adventure-land team meant that we were ready to deploy the fractional zero by the time we got to Point Jerningham. Coupled with some temporary park ups by some of the Southern end of the start line bunch in Oriental Bay, this enabled us to furl the code 0 at Kau Bay in fourth place, behind Clear Vision, Wedgetail and Andiamo, and JUST in front of Midnight Express. Jono even called out "Up! Up!" at one point.

 

With the tide coming in the Worser Bay shore line was the place to be. Each time we went right we gained. Every time we let anyone get to the right of us, we lost out. We dipped Montego Bay III. Craig proclaimed we were "no chance of exchanging paintwork" as he eased the main to allow Tony to dip Montego Bay IIIs stern. At the last minute Craig voice changed pitch somewhat as he cried "Don't forget about the prod!". I thought he was over-reacting. There was AT LEAST 20 cm clearance between the prod and Montego Bay IIIs stern.

 

The ground given in the dip meant that Gucci was now close enough that we needed to consider whether we could cross them. We did, by about 1 boatlength, but on the next cross they had gained and it was one boat length to them.

 

Heading out to Moaning Mini, Clear Vision cunningly had the Rock Monitor on the side of the boat furthest from Barretts Reef. Sources tell me that Paulie made the call that they should tack before they got to a large patch of weed... and that after the tack he was surprised to realise it wasn't a patch of weed, but a rock. Tony Wells apparently said "I know, but Vesna was on the other side of the boat and couldn't see it, so I took the opportunity to sneak that one past the Rock Monitor software."

 

At Steeple Light Tony wanted to tack. I looked up the line Clear Vision were sailing at and advised I thought we'd under lay by a 100 metres or so and asked that we hold on just a little longer. But I was over-ruled. Gucci tacked to leeward of us, and Midnight Express, Montego Bay III, ourselves and Clear Vision were all quite closely packed as we rounded Moaning Mini and eased sheets for the leg to Sincalir Head.

 

As we discussed the right sail selection it was observed that in Te Rauparaha's day it would have CLEARLY been a code zero, so we unfurled, and briefly 3 sailed (Main, #3 and Code Zero) before deciding that Te Rauparaha was wise, and it was indeed a Code Zero leg, and therefore dropped the #3.

 

The mythical 4th mode was discussed as we approached Sinclair Head. We were heading towards 10am, almost our scheduled bareheaded step change in performance, and the call was made to hoist the A3 and furl the zero. The A3 saw our boatspeed surge, which was good, but something strange had happened to the gennaker sheets. The stitching that joined them at the clew ring had slipped somehow and the join was now 8 feet back down the sheet. From the new position of the stitching to the clew we now had a long double loop of sheet. We couldn't work out how to fix it, so we ignored it and carried on. The spirit of Te Rauparaha was however mischievous, and the stitched loop made its way slowly further aft down the sheet. At around about 10.37 the trimmer was calling for more sheet, and the grinder was winching, and not a lot of sail trimming was resulting. The A3 collapsed, and we looked at the block in the aft corner of the boat to see three thicknesses of sheet through the block. The stitching had got all the way back to the block and we'd winched it through and it was now spectacularly stuck. We dropped the A3 and unfurled the zero while we worked on winching the sheet free of the block. While not quite a "bareheaded" stretch, we did think it was uncanny how Expedition had predicted this snafu 4 days before the race.

 

By the time we had sorted out the mess in Fantasy-land we decided it was time to hoist the VMG SLX masthead spinnaker. Good things happened after we did.

 

 

This was Cook Strait in a Southerly, but not quite as per how we had become accustomed to it earlier in the offshore series.

 

The naviguesser had to spend some time downstairs confirming we were heading the right way...

 

 

Clear Vision had their masthead kite up for the long slide to The Brothers, and we set off in hot pursuit.

 

 

It was hungry work, and Doctor George pulled out a pie he had made late the night before.

 

 

It really was an eye-poppingly good pie.

 

 

 

With a following sea there were some good squirts with our speed topping our on one swell at 13.8 knots. Midnight Express passed within a few boatlengths of us as the sailed a higher angle across our stern.

 

 

 

 

Looking ahead we could see that Andiamo had lead Wedgetail around the South Brother by about 1/4 of a mile.

 

We gradually closed in on Clear Vision as we approached The Brothers. A less than stellar gybe on CV, followed by the discovery that our kite pole ring was about to part company with the mast, while Midnight Express gybed at Awash Rock and charged into the Southern End of The Brothers fully powered up meant that the three boats were within 20 boat lengths of each other at the turn. Across the western side of The Brothers, the squirrelly wind and massive tidal effect meant that no one could relax. While not quite within earshot of Clear Vision, we were pretty sure that the Rock Monitor siren would have been screaming SCARLET!! SCARLET!! WARNING, WARNING TW!!! As the wind went violently astern in the wind shadow of the South Brother CV was forced to alter course dramatically to avoid crash gybing. Just as it seemed the rock proximity factor was reaching critical a very strong gust made Clear Vision jump and light up from nearly becalmed to flat out in a couple of seconds. Under Code Zero after the kite pole ring's demise made gybing the spinnaker unviable we too were soon surging past 13 knots as the wind funnelled through the gap between The Brothers.

 

We furled the zero and hardened up onto the wind under #3 and full main, about 8 lengths behind Clear Vision and 8 lengths in front of Midnight Express. I had a premonition at this point that the long beat back to Wellington was going to be quite demoralising. Clear Vision was 6 feet longer than us and Midnight was 12 feet longer. With the lumpy southerly swell it was hardly Nedax's preferred conditions. I hunkered down on the rail for a long painful dead maggot slog back across the Strait. However morale soared about 30 minutes later when Craig said "Bardy, look..." and pointed 45 degrees to leeward and astern. I was amazed to see Clear Vision coming out of a back up. We had sailed higher and faster, and had held Midnight Express' line too. Vesna called me on Sunday morning and said they had seen kelp trailing off their keel or rudder, and had decided to bite the bullet and do the back-up. No one saw how much weed floated free, but the official story is it was a monster amount.

 

Even after the back up I was not convinced we could hold the two of them off all the way to Sinclair Head. But mile after mile ticked by and they were not making any impression on us. About 3/4 of the way to Cape Terawhiti we suddenly knocked about 30 degrees. Initially this seemed potentially very good, as we'd be able to tack and be massively lifted on port tack. However Clear Vision and Midnight Express, about 300 metres astern never seemed to fall into the knock we had, and both just continued on 30 degrees higher than our heading. As the minutes ticked by this became more and more annoying. After about 10 minutes the wind where we were had also dropped off considerably. We began preparing for a headsail change from the #3 to the #2, but then aborted and tacked as the wind went even further left. We were now laying Cape Terawhiti, and at times were even heading above the course to the corner.

 

Clear Vision and Midnight Express tacked to leeward of us as they too finally found this easterly shift. We began trying to protect the left (Eastern) side. Initially we were still pushing 2 knots of adverse tide, but after a couple of tacks to head further East in an effort to get to the point on the coast where Expedition was recommending our portage point should begin we crossed over into the start of the Terawhiti Rip and soon found we had 2.5 knots of north to south tide assisting us. The call was made for Tony to sail us towards the roughest patch of water - being the zone where the wind against tide effect was the strongest. Once in the white water we found the tidal effect was at times over 4 knots. This was enough for us to debate the merits of ignoring Expedition's recommendation that we unbolt the keel and carry the boat up the sheer cliffs, and instead just sail the extra distance around the outside. Tony was especially keen on this as he'd been voted as responsible for dragging the keel and bulb up the hill.

 

Tacks abounded and on the one time we let Clear Vision get to the left of us she halved the distance to us. After that the rule was that as we headed south on port tack, when we got to Clear Vision's line we'd tack, keeping ourselves between her and Karori Rock. We closely monitored the Boat Speed and Speed Over Ground differential and the heading and Course Over Ground differential and made sure we tacked whenever the tidal effect dropped below 2 knots or 10 degrees of course variation. At the Karori rip this meant tacking in 3 - 4 metre waves which required a lot of concentration and timing.

 

Toms rock was easily visible with the Southerly swell breaking across the top of it, with even the bare rock visible in some of the troughs. We thought the chances of the Rock Monitor allowing Clear Vision to get inside us here were minimal, and indeed, when we tacked out to clear it CV synchro-tacked with us.

 

Once clear of Sinclair Head we eased sheets slightly and headed for home. The A2+ went up at the entrance to the harbour as the wind lightened considerably for the downwind slide home. We knew we didn't have enough of a lead on Clear Vision, Midnight Express, Montego Bay III or Gucci to be a contender on handicap, but given the long long beat home we were pretty stoked to have held to the bigger boats off.

 

A final peel from A2+ to Code zero to see us the last 500 metres up Lambton Harbour meant that the well earned beers were now just minutes away. Andiamo had it turned out held Wedgetail off for line honours, with us 3rd home. According to the provisional results on the club website (see http://rpnycorgnz2.digiwebhosting.com/f ... SIONAL.pdf) Clear Vision won on Club Offshore Handicap from Gucci and Andiamo filling out the podium. Gucci won on PHRF from Andiamo and Midnight Express, and Andiamo won on IRC from Gucci and Clear Vision (with their mast head kite).

 

As we sat in the cockpit celebrating having won the offshore series on Club Offshore Handicap and PHRF clarity gradually receded. Not wanting Tony, Fletch, Craig and Dr. George to feel they had a monopoly on cock-up of the day award with their upside down Code Zero hoist from the tip of the prod in the pre-start, I suggested we considered planning a trip with the boat to Barbados and Antigua next year for Mt. Gay's 300th birthday. Much planning was entered into, enthusiastically it must be added, before someone looked at the Mt. Gay bottle and realised it said "Since 1703" and not "Since 1713". We were, it seemed, 9 years too late for the big 300th birthday. Good to find out now we decided, rather than to show up and find we were Neville No Mates.

 

[203 0]

I always enjoy reading your posts Their detailed and tell us all the important bits, including some humor! love it!

 

Keep up the good work mate, and keep the pictures, videos and reports flowing!

[B00B00 310]

That's some seruously funny sh*t. Nice right up bardy and well done for winning the series!

[banaari 27]

Brilliant write up; love it. More please!

[Guest]

Great write up Bardy.

 

I can report that the Rock Monitor system was on very high alert at various rocky obstacles. There was much conversation after Barrett's Weed Rock. Then Thoms Rock, then Karori Rock, then Awash Rock, then Brothers Island Rock, back to Karori Rock and again at Thoms Rock back to Barrett's Weed Rock. Much questioning, much asking by the Rock Monitor to check the Chart Plotter and the proximity of the rocks. Largely the outcome was to ignore the Rock Monitor warning systems that are happiest at least a mile off any obstacle. Remember, it is all good fun until someone hits a rock....

 

Great race and weather was kinder than predicted despite some roughish sea on the way home.

 

[Megwyn 2]

I agree Bardy - always love your write-ups - keep them coming I say

[smithy09 50]

Just read this one Bardy.. Good stuff. Keep them coming!!