philstar
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Posts posted by philstar
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On 12/03/2023 at 8:43 PM, Deep Purple said:
Sad to say Smithy passed away yesterday but not before marrying his sweetheart the day before. Fair winds mate, you fought a good fight :-(
Faark. I just heard this from Bill.
RIP Smithy, my first RNI , thanks mate!
Live every day people!
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We are pretty sure the boat in flames behind little barrier was the stolen one from Weiti. Pretty sad for the owners. The police are aware of the situatiin I think. Hopefully the cretins will be caught.
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Bill from covers and canvas is also a top bloke vorpal blade on here
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Snipers white island race.
For what was meant to be a light airs race it was looking pretty windy as we approached North head after our motor up from Gulf harbour.
The pre-race discussion centered around a fractional kite ( our big one, not the wee flat thing in a sock) and a reef in the main.
Max’s logic was this is our qualifier first and a race second, finishing the race and getting to know the Sniper were the priorities of the race.
That sounded like a pretty good plan to me.
The sail choice turned out to be a pretty good one as both Galeforce and Kick wiped out around us spectacularly and quickly replaced their big gear with smaller gear.
There was a fair bit of other carnage at the start too.
As Galeforce boosted past us at the Noisies, we shook the reef out and picked up speed.
Sitting on constant 12 – 14’s with bursts of 15 – 16 knots Sniper felt fantastic and fully under control.
By Channel island the breeze went forward and Kick caught up under their masthead A3 as we tried to keep the big fractional under control.
In front Galeforce was seen to peel to their masthead, and then back to the fractional as they dropped below Channel island.
At the island in a pretty big sea state, the gybe went a bit pearshaped with the kite firmly wrapped around the forestay.
It took two of us on the foredeck to drag the kite down and then a bit of helm wiggling by me and contortions by Max on the foredeck and the wrap popped out and we were off again.
Our original game plan was to head outside the Mercs as we were expecting the wind to shift north.
The angle looked good as we headed down so we decided to try out our masthead A2 gennaker which we’ve only usd in around 5 knots of breeze. Its in a sock, it’s a good angle, lets see what the Sniper can do.
Up with the A2 and as we unsnuffed the sock We managed to lose grip on the snuffer line, wups.
Finally we’re boosting down with the kite set and the snuffer line is flying around the second spreader level- bugger, the boathook won’t reach that.
Not to worry, lets sort that out later, time for a beer after all that work.
The A2 did exactly what we hoped, full control with the bow lifting over the waves and Sniper fully going off. We were sitting on 15 knots at 120 degrees absolutely sending it straight towards White island. Wicked !!
With the wind due to ease and go North it was all looking pretty rosy…..
As dusk approached we knocked out some cheesey crackers with blue cheese and a bottle of merlot, had dinner and then Max tootled off to his bunk for a kip.
½ an hour later just on dusk, 14 knots true became 22 knots and suddenly we were doing 16 – 18 knots at 80 degrees. Around 40 degrees off course! Crap!
“HEY MAX I think its time to get this thing off.”
“WHAT?” Came the answer from down below.
“We’re doing 18 knots at 80 degrees”
“Oh sh*t, yeah ok, Um how the F$%k are we gonna do this?”
“ I dunno, shall we try a letter box drop with the lazy sheet. I’ll go really low.”
Wonder of wonder it worked.
We went low, tucked the A2 behind the main and pulled in in really tight while Max went forward and blew the tack line and boom, down she came. We didn’t even get it wet!
The only complication was that the masthead kite halyard ended up around the back of the mainsail square top.
Meaning, in the future, we either had to drop the main, or get up the rig to retrieve the masthead halyard. Meh, later problems
“Ok lets go for the number 2 eh”. Up with the new Evolution #2.5, which reefs to a #3, a great sail!
So both of us on the bow plugging in the new sail and Doris (The autohelm) decides the boys could use some more excitement and decides to gybe and start heading upwind.
Max is hanging onto the new sail on the bow and I carefully head back to the cockpit to get it all under control.
We get the boat under control and back on course, number 2 up and we are 2 sail reaching at 13 knots right on course. Life is looking rosy again and Max heads back for a bit more snoozle.
At around 230am, the sea state is getting pretty huge, its windy, there are boats coming through upwind and suddenly White island looms out of the gloom.
Pretty scary, but exhilarating at the same time. This is living!!
“Hey Max, We’re here!”
“What, oh wow, there it is” As Max come back on deck.
Round the back of White Island there is 10 minutes of respite as we head into flat sheltered water, and then it’s off again upwind this time for the long bash to windward.
Number 2.5 and full main in around 14 – 18 knots of true wind speed, the boat was trucking!
After White island it’s a watch change and I head off to a warm dry bunk for a few hours welcome sleep.
6am I’m back sorting the radio sched, engine on charging the house battery and Max is looking pretty tired after a long night.
By 7 Max is asleep and I reckon we have Kick just in front and Galeforce just to windward (that turned out to be Pepe a fully crewed r930).
A few hours later we tack and head towards flatter water and the alderman islands hoping to get inside the northerly change.
We find Snipers high fast mode and notice westerly moving clouds. We are constantly lifting on starboard tack and heading inside the Aldermans is looking good.
Next to hot water beach suddenly the wind dies and we change to the jibtop. After going backwards and round in circles for 10 minutes the wind then shifts left and we’re back to the number 2 and laying through to the hole in the wall. Awesome!!
A beautiful evening and a couple of rumbo’s appear with our brie and crackers. CU Later appears through the northern entrance of the hole in the wall.
“I wonder if their freezer is keeping their beer cold and producing icy coke” we ponder. Must have been a pretty good send if its taken us this long to get past them.
Kudos boys! A long race in an overgrown 12 foot skiff.
The wind drops and we change to the number 1. At midnight I take over from Max as we tack over to lay channel island.
“Cool only 10 miles to channel and we’re doing 5 knots, should be there around 2am!”
Famous last words as the wind glassed out, with a beautiful moon rise in the smokey haze from the Australian bush fires !!
At 3 am I swap with Max after doing about 1 mile “I’ve been dreamin of doing 5 knots mate”.
By 6am we were around Channel island with Kick right next to us. They had their fro up, us on the huge light no1, the boats were neck and neck and incredibly equal in speed.
Then they popped up their A2,”Crap I guess we’d better sort that halyard and the A2 then” said Max dryly.
A quick trip to the top of the rig sorted the halyard, then I’m on the foredeck getting 1 billion twists out of the snuffer and the kite before we get a successful hoist and we’re off after Kick.
What ensued was a beautiful sail, through diving Gannets and dolphins while munching hot breakfast burritos and sipping fresh coffee laced with rum ( just to kill the germs).
Kick went for apparent wind generating angle, gybing back through Rakino channel while we went for rhumbline trying to maximise our speed and soak down to below izzy bay.
At izzy bay the wind went forward and we caught kick as they dropped their gennaker and peeled to their fro. We dropped as well ( should have held it) and peeled to the L1 then back to the A2 as CU Later roared up on us under gennaker. Obviously they weren’t distracted by hot burritos or rum laced coffee.
The A2 was working well as we slowly caught Kick while trying to avoid the 49ers out training. We finished 2 minutes behind Kick in an awesome leg to the finish.
Great racing.
Overall what a fantastic shake down for RNI.
Sniper was rock solid, no leaks, nothing much broken, all our systems worked, the bunks were dry and comfortable after 24 hours of absolutely sending it with water everywhere ( except inside). Our systems of watch keeping and sleep seemed to work well and decision making process all seemed to work.
The next step is to set up a laptop and iridium go so that they talk to each other and give us weather gribs.
How hard can that be to do for a rigger and an adventure travel agent
)Onwards to RNI!!
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It obviously got caught by rising sea levels caused by climate change.
They should have seen this coming Little Shoal bay is absolutely riven by sea level rises and climate change.
The science is settled !!
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Terrible news.
Survivability in the water in 40 - 50 knots is truly limited.
Just shows how truly reliant we are on liferafts or a dinghy eh
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They look like very nice yachts. Brand new out of the wrapper for 89k seems pretty good value too.
It will be interesting to see how they perform against the Sr's and Ross boats.
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so you could do a similar set up to the one that Kick and Sniper have gone for.
We've both built cedar core carbon prods with static tubes.
I was pretty comfortable building the prod and beefing it all up enough to hold gennakers and code zero's. I'm not sure I'd want it holding the rig though although I can't see why it wouldn't if its beefed up enough.
Snipers prod is based around an Elliott 7 prod, which has around a 4mm wall thickness, with 4 laminations of 4mm cedar on both sides. There is a layer of carbon in between each lamination. Its then wrapped in 5 layers of carbon uni's and finished off with a layer of carbon double bias. All vacuum bagged.
THe inside of the anchor locker is beefed up was well with carbon plate, carbon uni's and DB's.
Have look at the "beware sniper in action" face book page for a few more pics of the finished prod.
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so whats the end goal?
Do you want a longer prod?
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Booboo gets to trim the stereo
Motorboat II will be there but fully crewed this time. Our first go at fully crewed racing.
Booboo gets to trim the stereo and the rum cup only
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Freeeeedom!
will be there with a newly recovered bowchick......hopefully.
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We had a Lotus 10.6 Rewi which was done at Hobsonville marina a few years ago. It cost around 15k from memory.
Full plane back, dry out, a layer of glass and epoxy, then anitfoul.
The performance difference afterwards was huge I think she lost alot of weight.
As far as I see if you like your boat and intend keeping her its probably worth doing.
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I've ditched the gate idea, too hard to make it work with an internal track.
We got inspiration from Nigel and Cory on Katana ( Sunfast 3600).
We're putting an eye bolt at the second spreader and rigging an prestretched 8mm dynex strop with a rigging screw at the base of the mast.
It will work the same way as a separate trysail track, we can hoist the trysail on the topping lift or the main halyard. in addition its removeable, light and easy to rig. The Trysail will be rigged with soft hanks.
I reckon its a good option.
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Hey team
I've posted this in its own topic in tech talk but ideas would be great.
I'm looking for ideas on a try sail track on Sniper.
Its an alloy mast with an internal track.
Basically I don't want to put an ugly external track on the outside of the mast and have all the bulk and weight of the track on the mast.
Ideas?
Can we do a short track at the bottom of the mast which feeds into the internal track?
Or another alternative might be a dynex strop which goes from the gooseneck up the mast and we hoist the trysail on this.
I think Katana uses this.
The rig is out of the boat until 21 september and I'm just looking for ideas.
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That sounds like what I'm after.
a pic would be great Matt.
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Hey team
I'm looking for ideas on a try sail track on Sniper.
Its an alloy mast with an internal track.
Basically I don't want to put an ugly external track on the outside of the mast and have all the bulk and weight of the track on the mast.
Ideas?
Can we do a short track at the bottom of the mast which feeds into the internal track?
Or another alternative might be a dynex strop which goes from the gooseneck up the mast and we hoist the trysail on this.
I think Katana uses this.
The rig is out of the boat until 21 september and I'm just looking for ideas.
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Freedom got a great start at the pin along with String Theory and Exodus. Went well all the way down to browns island with Attitude catching fast.
String theory dropped their kite after browns with us and Attitude fully sending it towards rocky bay right in front of Suellens camera boat. Suellen had just started filming us when the Attitude boys tried to steal our thunder by destroying their kite.
We carried our kite right down to Rocky bay, then dropped and 2 sailed to passage islands where we hoisted again a little too early.
This is where we discovered that if you duck under big leaners like Titanium etc you can go really high in their wind shadow and then pop out in front and send off until you find the next one, then go really high again.
Using this technique we manage to lay into Ruth passage. Just !!
Attiude had peeled to their fractional and held it right across to cow and calf where we went masthead zero then masthead kite, then back to masthead zero.
Lots of position changes here between us, String theory and Exodus with Thio and Lucifer catching fast.
Tacking up Waiheke was a case of trying to find the flattest water we could find and then into Motuihi channel where we swapped tacks with Mr Kite.
Finished with a huge send into the finish on a large gust where Coen was yelling " I CANT LET THE MAIN GO ANY MORE"
A seriously exciting race, which gave us a 1st equal with White knight for the series. I was ruined afterwards.
Thanks SSANZ for an awesome series.
Thanks Live sail die for an awesome video
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Yep very similar hull shape to Charel which has a more traditional cotpit/ dodger set up.
Interesting interview with jeremie bayou and sam davies on facebook. They were both saying that when these boats are at full speed you simply can't move around safely, cook, eat do maintenance or anything.
Maybe the inside of alex's cabin is just a big pink padded cell........
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Yep multihulls are pretty maneuverable and misunderstood.
We will generally always prefer to dip a keelboat. rather than make one tack, because then the keel boat just goes high and pinches us out after the tack.
I can't see the problem here, the kids on the weta were eyeballing the skipper of the keel boat and possibly ducked him closer than he was comfortable. At the end of the day if they'd hit they would have come off MUCH worse and probably broken their prod.
Relax,
as long as the skippers are eye-balling each other then you should be able avoid contact.
The keel boat on starboard simply needs to maintain course.
Now as for huge stink pots digging holes in water and feeling the need to do 25 knots while they roar past 10 metres away, that's a different matter !
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Sniper is IN!
4 Elliot 1050,s and a 10.5
Its gonna be a great race.
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Yep I agree on the slow down train of thought.
That cat didn't appear to have any escape hatches which I think would probably be a good idea in a cruising cat of that size.
35 knots with gusts and big seas is pretty big conditions for a cat, even a 11.7 metre one !!
Not good. -
So Freedom had a great race, until we scored an own goal.
The video is here, can anyone see our own goal?
please ignore the last minut of the vid it extended into nighttime for some reason.
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8 Multihulls to play with!
15 - 20 knots sw breeze.
Big send off the start and to Navy buoy
Hull flying upwind to Shag island and around pakatoa
Screecher reach around top of waiheke.
Hull flying upwind to the finish in flat water.
And this year we don't have a self-reefing half main
WOOHOO bring in on !!!!!
FREEEEEEEEEEDOM !!
remember no smiling- this is all very serious
Your Glamour Photos
in MarineTalk
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