Squaddy Winter Series 14

[Guest]

So what happened?

[Guest]

People went sailing!

Nice fleet, breeze in places.

According to my spies.

I was spending money on technology and not sailing.

[Guest]

I dont take photos and tell If I get around to it ill upload a few tonight. It turned out to be another great day of racing from where I stood.

[Guest]

Looks like i might need to resize the images as well

[otto 31]

So what happened?

 

Yes what happened, why were you not sailing with us

 

Is that the reason for your footer

[Guest]

Yes what happened, why were you not sailing with us

 

Is that the reason for your footer

You and the Elliot 12 Curse plus a BMW and Yes.

Mostly the BMW.

[markm 30]

A few of us probably should make more of an effort to comment on racing, even the more pedestrian and lower key affairs. IMHO, Crew.Org has lost a lot with the decline of racing input over the years.

 

From our perspective in the depths of C division.

 

Day was very pleasant, maybe 10-16kts mainly south and for us a course down to Saltworks, Flax pt, Orakei and back.

 

Much humming and hahhing on what to run for the reach out to Northhead, it can be a punishing angle for a smaller boat with a non overlapping rig. Always keen to get up a fractional gennaker in a southerly but this time judged it to be a tiny bit too tight and strong to get away with one and opted for a rarely used jib top.

 

Choice seemed to work well enough, still struggled against a couple of the bigger boats but held on well enough to not feel the need for a ritual mass wrist slitting event before the kite hoist at Northhead. Zero Tolerance and Namu did okay there and we hoisted in company with the Flying Tiger and a couple of MRX a touch behind the leading two.

 

Again, the run was a pretty quiet affair though I was somewhat surprised as to how flat it proved. Seem to recall some comment on board about Elliphunk having a few exciting opportunities with their kite but of course being dedicated and focused crew, none of us would look back to enjoy the trials and tribulations of others.

 

Ended up having to run in to the mark somewhat flatter than the little black book of clever tactics and smart strategies would consider appropriate. Then compounded that by letting a small piece of the kite check out the water flow under the bow which again is a drop technique I couldn't find in the little black book. Didn't seem to hurt too horrendously though, probably let the FT10 through but were still 4th with the beginnings of a pretty big gap back to the next boat behind.

 

Had a nice upwind leg to Flax pt, held our height nicely there which a few others seemed to struggle a bit with, result being to sneak pass Tigga and a probable gain on the two leaders.

 

Opted to sail past before tacking which again proved to be a pretty significant plus. Unfortunately at that point, instead of paying attention and reading the little black books page with the heading "Don't get yourselves bounced out left while clearing dirty air and on the wrong side of a40 degree wind shift", well, we tied up with this boat, had to go left to clear air and their was this really big wind shift.

 

That was ugly, just can't give away 400m+ and expect to have a good day, lost touch with Zero Tolerance and Namu and ended up back behind Tigga.

Reasonably straight forward from there on. Had an interesting small line up tacking below the FT10 and managed to bounce them off behind us. They're under new ownership and I think still figuring out how to set the boat upwind

but will no doubt get that sorted and give us a ton more grief in the future.

 

By the finish, about 2.5 mins behind ZT and Namu so 3 mins behind where we want to be and 2 mins in front of the FT10 with the MRX group, Stewarts etc all further back.

 

Interesting day, thought the FT10 did well running a gennaker on a dead flat run. Seemed to be a day where the rich got richer and a day particularly mean to the 930s which based on their finish times didn't look to be having a day they'd treasure.

 

Should be a good series, there's about five boats that'd be competing seriously for line every time and a few more more than capable of upsetting that group on their day.

 

Give ourselves 4 or 5 points from 10, maybe, can do better but then we've certainly done worse.

[Duty Free 2]

Even had men overboard --not sure if it was one or 2 but we went within 30m of a floater waiting for his boat (Bella Rosa )to come back for him --not sure who else went for a swim but my crew reckon there was someone else in the water up around North head buoy .

[all fired up 6]

Tigga's view.

We were right on ZT's tail at the North Head rounding, and as Mark M said lost a couple of places on the run to Salt Works. Sailing angles with a Gennaker against the incoming tide is not optimal compared to those with the ability to go straight down. Watch this space.

Fun & Games did climb up underneath us on the tack to Orakei. To me it looked as though they had 7 or 8 on the rail, while we had 5. The wind was starting to come up to 20kt, so rail meat makes a difference. There is always next time.

 

Here is a shot of Tigga looking very Tigerish just after the North Head rounding. Pic taken by Stephen C who I understand was on North Head.

[Island Time 1,228]

Content. I'm more than happy to have mm more racing content, so would like to encourage those who are out there doing that to make contributions. Thanks markm and others for your reports!

[Guest]

Okay, where are the stories, was enough going on around Devonport Wharf to fill a page or two. Django had a 'mare and I gotta hand it to the Stewarts for spending that much time on their sides without lifelines and not losing crew. (there for but the grace of god etc....)

 

Awesome send down to Motukorea, fastest I've ever been in a mono. Shame the log wasn't working.

[Clipper 343]

A short sail for us on Voom. Blasted down the harbour, mostly in control, rounded north head beside Epsom salts (they got at least the first mark right) and behind attitude. Hardened up, discussed that perhaps the storm jib was too small, and then the gooseneck broke. Slow motor home into a solid breeze.

 

Some big nosedives amongst the multi fleet, but everyone made it home relatively unscathed and most definitely upright as far as I could tell

[Adrianp 119]

We had a bad tack just before the start and ended up a minute late to the start which was a bugger. Hoisted the shoot and had an awesome run down the harbour. Some of those "wind against tide" waves made for interesting sailing! Who needs rudders in the water anyways?

 

Just as we went to drop the kite, a screw broke - which holds the lashings at the end of the prod - up goes the prod and kite. This is the exact second it let go. Nice work Stephen to get it!

 

 

Cool sail out to Narrow Neck, reach across to Saltworks in the company of Borderline and Attitude. Two sailed it for a bit (cos we don't have a prod to fly anything off) but find that too boring and slow. Try the tack of the kite to the front beam and hoist! Off we go to Motakoria (sp?) following Borderline. Attitude absolutely sent it - to the wrong mark at Issy bay.

 

Fun beat home to finish and very glad to park the boat back on the mooring in pretty much one piece and upright!

 

An awesome day out on the old GBE 8.5m. Its the only way to go sailing! The rest of you need to find out what sailing really is!

[Adrianp 119]

A short sail for us on Voom. Blasted down the harbour, mostly in control, rounded north head beside Epsom salts (they got at least the first mark right) and behind attitude. Hardened up, discussed that perhaps the storm jib was too small, and then the gooseneck broke. Slow motor home into a solid breeze.

 

Some big nosedives amongst the multi fleet, but everyone made it home relatively unscathed and most definitely upright as far as I could tell

 

Looking fast here!

[gonzo 0]

Try the tack of the kite to the front beam and hoist! Off we go to Motakoria (sp?) following Borderline. Attitude absolutely sent it - to the wrong mark at Issy bay.

 

Yes Saturday was one of the better downwind sends we've had for sure - first time we've stuffed the bows in to that level and I was lucky to land on the boat rather than in the pish after getting caught on the wrong side of the kite sheet during a gybe. We were also pretty happy to be back in the pen with nothing broken!

 

Had to have a court session post race over getting the course so wrong - SOMEONE owes a box of beers for that call. Great fun out there and still sore from the effort!

[gonzo 0]

Sorry Freedom - tried to quote your post and ended up plagiarising!

 

Perhaps we could have tried your idea of tying off the genny to the front beam last time our prod disintegrated although our beam kinda broke too

[Adrianp 119]

 

Had to have a court session post race over getting the course so wrong - SOMEONE owes a box of beers for that call. Great fun out there and still sore from the effort!

 

I had to laugh when you guys tacked in front of us at Narrow Neck Bouy and I could see someone with the course sheet in their hand........and you still got it wrong from there!

 

We got it wrong last race so triple checked it this time!

[Guest]

Nothing like having the masthead A4 up in over 30kn. Fortunately Equilibrium has twin rudders and is a big boat so although the bow doesn't pop we had 19s showing. I did see V5 and Mayhem absolutely sending it in a couple of puffs. They must have been early 20s.

Nothing broke, we didn't have any major hassles, and the guest stars that came added experienced grunt which helped on the corners.

Shame about the mark as it was probably the right course. Also well done to Mojo. Angie had a blinder down to Issy.

[Guest]

We had a good but reasonably uneventful race..... until the mark wasn't found. I heard the course was going to be a different one but they didn't use that because they knew a buoy was missing so change to the one they set... Oppps bugger!

 

Watched Flyer first spin out then go straight into a chinese in a near rip mast out of boat way. That looked very ugly for a minute or 2. Some of the multis looked to have their hands full, bit looked good doin it. Was impressed with the size of Equilibriums kite selection.

[markm 30]

Did seem to be one of those days where, if you came back with the same number of pieces and oriented more or less the same way, then things weren't all bad.

 

No one on board could quite convince themselves that a masthead anything was a good idea. Alas, the only fractionals we have are gennakers and gennakers on flat runs are not a beautiful experience. That said, there were four seriously ugly chinese jibes on other boats that we can remember so perhaps we won't bemoan our not beautiful experience too much.

 

Got to the bottom mark only needing to take one tiny little lie down for a nap after jibing, so nothing too dramatic. We were in the mid teens for a couple of bursts and Wild Oats was about a week in front so you guys must have been pretty swift at times.

 

Lost the kite sheet off the gennaker at some stage, no idea how that happened but it least it had the good grace to wait until after we didn't need to jibe.

 

Seemed to do very well coming out of the bottom mark. Might have been a lift there that worked for us or something as we seemed to take a lot of ground out of those in front quite quickly.

 

From there pretty much a slog home. We were reefed with a #4 and for the most part thought it was a good configuration and seemed fast until the wind died just before the end. Only regret was not covering Playbuoy when we had the chance. Not sure it would have made any difference, but still.