Akld to Tga report Pt 1

[ballystick 73]

I haven't written a report before, Kiwi Bardy sets the standard, but as this race is the first I have done with my own boat so I'll give it a go. The Predictwind tracker was amazing and any follower could track the yachts progress throughout the race which is a big step up from previous races, cheap too - thanks Jon.

Aboard Jade Lady it went like this..

The forecast had been light and was confirmed on the morning of the start. A crew member downloaded the i-Regatta app and we set up the start line. As the start approached it was difficult to get time signals - how do you do it on RNZYS races?? - but I wasn't the only one who was confused as Brian Kent (Squealer and V5 guru)asked me what time to go for the start - we were a minute different?? - any way I decided to drift towards the start line and the app said we had to go 50% faster, so we hoisted the kite, the one minute hooter sounded so I felt better, I looked around and there was little action and most boats were way back.

We were late over the line but all the rest were way later -phew!! That app was real helpful for these races.

As we drifted down the harbour, bigger boats rolled us and Cool Change cruised past with a mast head kite. Down by the wharf the boats by Devonport were doing well so I thought we would gybe and drift over that way, one of our crew was leaning off the back chundering from the previous nights festivities right by a camera boat, this jet propulsion from the didn't help much, luckily no-one protested our non-legal?? assistance. I heard a hooter and found we were in the path of a barge and tug with little speed or steerage, we had no choice but to gybe away to the bay area just past the container wharf - out of the tide assistance??

However we were close to 0508 Sex for Life yacht (Force 11) who passed by and gybed onto fresh breeze, we copied and looked across at the north head boats who were almost windless, we felt good cruising past the A div boats with a light breeze filling our spinnaker.

The breeze inceased and kept coming with some boats heading our way picking up the breeze coming through by Browns Is - things were going well. We were back ahead of Cool Change and decided to tack back for more, a back tack and nearly got caught on port by CC, we were too greedy and stayed on the right for too long, when we got back over to the right CC, Fast Lane and others picked up the Nth change and were miles ahead!!

Across Waiheke we went right across to the Coromandel, by the time we arrived near the coast we discovered why the boats in front tacked away - becalmed - Duty Free who was nearby had also tacked away behind us!!

I gazed hopefully around and spied a breeze line coming down the coast - yes - after a small wait it came in and Rigmarole (some distance behind) and us hooked into a strong lift that was taking us straight to Channel Is with all other visible boats were at least 30 deg lower - at last, this could be it - it lasted for quite some time but not long enough and it knocked back about 20 deg but still good.

Open Country came across and tacked in front, we followed them around Channel with A div boats not far in front, we sailed up the Colville Channel a bit too close to the land, maybe, and CC cruised past, it was quick, quicker than a N30 and quicker than Berenice who worked their way past us.

It was quiet at The Hole in the Wall and we were way back from CC and Berenice !!??

Then we hit a strong SW breeze (that wasn't forecast??!!) which all off a sudden made us feel good as we left Rigmarole behind but I felt it meant ahead was unknown. Then out off Hot Water Beach we hit our first big hole, the lack of wind and large swells made sailing impossible and the competition caught up stopped and some passed us out east. After an hour or so we dragged ourselves out to the East to find a breeze where we saw other yachts progressing quite well, but guessed one was Berenice. Gotta cook tea I'll be back.

[Guest]

Great effort Andy! ... Looking forward to the rest after dinner.

[ballystick 73]

Where is the edit button - I hate those typo errors!!

 

I seemed to have lost the first Part 2 somewhere so have to write another??

 

Anyway, for being able to go sailing I now have to earn Brownie Points, so it was Tga Snapper Cajun style plus avocado and cucumber salad caught from Jade Lady just out from home yum!! Bardy will know why I said that but no pictures - Lise

 

Part 2/2

We were travelling in a breeze now but outside the Aldermans. I was real tired now, how do those shorthanded guys do it - they're legends I reckon!! So my crew came up rested? to take over. My instructions were to keep going this way, and keep away from the "death zone" I went to try for some rest and after 2 hrs approx, the noise of tacks on knocks was more than I could stand. In the early morning light my heart dropped to see we were further back from Tga than before and right in the no wind or convergence zone of death?? I was devastated as they apologised but tried to put it behind me as we flapped our way to nowhere. Some good news was that Rigmarole were still behind us in a similar situation - if we beat them to the finish it would all be OK - and soon Lynx (who was about 2 hrs behind at channel) came sailing up to us before stopping in the zone close by. They flapped with us due to the lack of wind and large swells, before they worked to the East gradually leaving us for dead. We worked ourselves towards Slipper where Duty Free was sliding by, slowly we got going as Rigs started their motor to retire?? and a Nth breeze came in so we hoisted the kite to be cruising at 6-8 knots, why motor home?

We were closing slowly on DF ahead until they hoisted their kite to keep away, unfortunately the breeze lifted and eased us out to Mayor Is so we had to gybe back at a horrendous angle in search of a stronger land assisted late sea breeze, we were going to get DF still if my plan worked!! We found a better breeze, so we gybed to lay through to the finish but not strong enough to get DF. So it looked like we were going to finish before darkness and the voice of Rhonda (Smudge) on the finish boat never sounds so good - thank you. We joked about our extreme finishing speed to ensure they would be ready for us, this comment brought out a rare radio comment from our RO (Bill I think) so that was another highlight amongst our low. So with one last gybe to finish in style - dead last.

The prizegiving was great, good food, and lots of people telling "lies" Gary Smith did a great job imitating Mrs Browns Boys with his jokes. Open Country and Kia Kaha basically cleaned up even though IRC was accidentally omitted - whoops.. Sorry, thanks to Ray and also to the sponsors for their help Thanks to all the other competitors and my crew plus support land crew, cheers Andy

[Guest]

Thanks for the writing effort.

Mike R

[Battleship 100]

Good write up Andy was certainly a race of snakes and ladders, some just got less snakes than others.

After doing the last 6 akl 2 tga races I have gotten used to the fickle weather at this time of year and regard it as a real challenge. Certainly more technical than the coastal and takes real strength of character to win.

Congrats to all the winners particularly the old farts on open country who sailed a great race.

[Guest]

Exactly where did you catch a cucumber salad off Jade Lady? Good cucumber salad spots are hard to find...

[ballystick 73]

Just off the Auckland wharves, near Ocean Photograhy boat maybe?

[Battleship 100]

Here's our little report hard to match the benchmark set by KB but might be of interest to those in the race.

 

Well were are reasonably happy with our first two handed coastal race on Berenice.

We didn't finish doing all the last minute jobs until about 9:30 so were pushing things a bit and only arrived in the start area about 15 minutes before the start, not that it mattered much there was a very light breeze which promptly disappeared about the same time as the gun went off, so off we drifted down the harbour with the tide along with the rest of the fleet. We tried the spinnaker briefly only to pull it straight down again as it wouldn't fly, we then set the jib top which seemed more successful provided we ran very hot angles to the wind (wind still being a relative term), as we headed down the harbour we seemed to develop a magnetic attraction to every marker and moored boat having to work hard to clear one marker buoy by centimetres.

 

As we neared North head the boats up ahead were becalmed to we decided to head up the Rangitoto channel, we drifted around north head with the tide and hooked into a light NE breeze in company with Atom Ant, with Open Country and Wandering Star slightly ahead and to Windward, we then spent the next hour or so keeping in the Breeze line off East Coast Bays heading towards Whangaparoa Peninsula.

Our plan was to go all the way to Tiritiri if necessary we didn't quite get there as the breeze increased and we tacked away and headed for Colville, as our plan was to get close to the Coromandel Peninsula before dark we put the bow down a bit and gained speed sitting on about 6.5 - 7 knots which made for some lovely sailing, as we closed the coast we put a few tacks in to stay in the breeze and changed down to the no.2 Genoa (we didn't want to blow out our ancient no.1 as we would be needing it).

We eventually got to a point were we could almost lay channel island so tacked onto starboard hoping for a slight lift as we went into the Colville channel to counter the incoming tide, we slowly ground past Rigmarole about 2 miles from channel island and turned the radio on to listen as other boats rounded, Open Country was just rounding and we came around after closely crossing in front of Pterodactyl, who then proceeded to spend the next hour slowly passing us and we were doing the same to Jade Lady who were further inshore.

Just before Opito Bay the wind started to go light so we elected to change back to the No.1 Genoa only to have the 2 jam on the way down, panic stations! we put the deck lights on and had to remove the feeder to get the sail freed, it didn't take too long but let Jade Lady back in front of us and Pterodactyl was just a stern light in the distance once we were under way again.

So uneventful sailing from there to the hole in the Wall in the Slowly dying Easterly, once we got through past old man rock we straight away got a SW land breeze of 12 or so knots we though we could ride all the way to slipper Island so eased the sheets and took off sitting around 8-9 knots, alas it only lasted 10 minutes to be replaced by a patchy transition zone and large swell. We spent the rest of the night trying to keep the boat moving, heading offshore until the breeze started to die then tacking back in sometimes tacking through 180 degrees just to keep moving.

Eventually, about two thirds of the way out to the Alderman Islands we began to feel just a whisper of the forecast north easterly and our spirits were instantly lifted. We were doing 3-4 knots in the direction we wanted to go.

We soon changed to the jib top and speed up a little the wind continued to back and brought our course up to the point where we weren't sure which side of Mayor Island to go. We decided on keeping below it and hoisted the old Spinnaker (purchased cheap at the last minute as our weak point is light downwind) this butt ugly old kite did a remarkable job in staying full. But we constantly had Cool Change inside and couldn't pull away.

 

We crept along towards Mayor Island eventually being able to take advantage of some funnelling effect off the Island and reduced swell, we made some good gains here and it was starting to become apparent we were doing ok as boats further inshore started to appear out of the haze and were not moving very well.

As we got past Mayor we gybed inshore for a little to try and cover our bases in case a sea breeze developed, this proved quite costly so we gybed back out and kept on that course until abeam of Karewa Island where we panicked a bit and headed back in to cover the inside boats, bad move as it was very light in there and the move cost us at least 2 places with Sabian passing us and Cool Change slipping past right on the line bugger!

Thanks to the team at TYPBC for running the race which despite the fickle weather was a great challenge.

And big ups to the friendly support boat Rum deliverers who even took the time to stop for a chat, you don't get that in many races.

[Guest]

Nice report Willow. Wow, considering going east of Mayor Island. I'd never thought that would even get a look in... Two interesting contrasting views. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

[Battleship 100]

Thanks KB, yes is funny where you end up in the pursuit of some wind where moving is infinitely faster than not moving.

[ballystick 73]

East of Mayor is where I was headed and moving is better than slapping, I didn't know what would be after that - around Astrolabe and Motiti.

 

Looking at the tracker I can see where it all went wrong, great tool that - brings out the "if onlys" !!

[Guest]

No Worries. Ross 930

Went 5 up with 3 old codgers and 2 young úns.

Started at pin and late but not as much as most. Went out Rangi Channel for the first time in years. Outside Rakino, and through the Noises and settled in for a long leg across to the fleet. I think going out worked well for us. Alternated between a small overlapper on the cabin top and a new Code 0. Crossover about 6-7 True. Got smoked in the transition to the Easterly. I think we became a little 31 footer with a short mast, and our skinny foils meant we had to give up and reach out. Coppelia went from just behind to gone. Got through the Hole in Wall ok and got the SW just as we exited. With the big swell we lost a couple to seasickness. Tried to stay in phase with breeze and at dawn we had the Aldermans on the bow. Decided to go in on the SE when it was there and back out when SW to get back in touch with the fleet which seemed to be inshore. Watched OC go outside the Aldermans and get the Easterly first while Berenice and CC got the Easterly early enough to go inside. Went to Code 0 and reached along the breeze line aiming for Mayor and watched OC set a kite. Tried A2 and was ok in flat but getting knocked around in swell. Eventually breeze stable enough to go to S2. Settled in for a long VMG run on Port gybe. By now all crew were in good form again. We kept sighting sails on the inside as we buffaloed around them. We also worked hard on maintaining our depth on the boats outside. Introduced the kids to creamed rice. They'll learn to appreciate it. Instead noodles and chocolate kept them happy. Picked a nice layline and finished just before 3.30pm. Got our high score of 7.8kn reaching in from the finish. Go figure....

Finished 9th on line and 4th overall. We're happy with that. Mark - we aren't on RaceTrack. Well done all winners.

[Guest]

I see we came 6th on Racetrack. Thanks Mark. No problems with any of the boats that beat us - all a function of the breeze behind.

If anyone from Wandering Star checks in, I'd be interested in their course. They are having a very good year. SSANZ, 3 Kings and now Easter.