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SSANZ SAS 2 Handed Series Baltic 50 Reports


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The fleet got away cleanly after a 2hr postponement. At the original start time, 9am, it was blowing it's boobies off but come 11am it was tame verging on bugger all. Still an annoying lightish rain falling but that faded away about 5mins before the 1st start. Talk about chalk and cheese considering the last weeks weather or even the weather 2 hrs earlier.

 

Many boats got a visit for a safety check on jackets, harness, tethers, jack lines and a few things, all passed. NOTE: One or 2 boats took a little bit of time to dig out lifejackets. If something bad happened are you sure you'll have time to dig gear like that out?? How about moving them to the top of the heap so they can be grabbed faster, the next time you need to grab them it might not be just a safety check.

 

The powers that be would be pleased with the number of crews wearing jackets and how many of those had built in harnesses, a lot spotted being worn with tethers attached ready to go.

 

A few boats asking if the short course was a happening thing, Nope sorry, have a nice warm mug of harden the f**k up instead :)

 

A nice array of wet gear on parade but isn't red getting a little boring now, I think so.

 

All clean starts heading north from the Northern Leading start line to get around Rangi Light.

 

As usual the Sport boat fleet pushed the line and took of with big juggling for positions. It's a good looking fleet that one with some very tweaked boats, flash sails and predominately highly ugly crews.

 

By the time the Small boat and Multis got close to the Light the wind had softened to almost non existent and what there was had moved more left, it wasn't looking spectacular for them. But the boats around Rangi Light looked to have a nice, if not large, breeze so fingers crossed everyone hooked into that breeze.

 

About then the RIB crew saw a dark mass heading back into get the fleet so the hammer went down and they were outter there. Damn handy having a 115hp mainsail, it goes faster than rain :thumbup:

 

Now awaiting the word to create a finishline.

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Sadly but fortunately I'm not racing this year in the Baltic 50.

 

Just back from Achillies Point lookout. Knot a yacht in sight that looked like a racer, only flat calm and lots or rain down towards Motuihe Channel and Browns Island. Waiheke could knot be seen.

 

It could be a slow wet drifter . . . but wait there's more . .

 

A break in the cloud out west and as I type, I'm in sunshine . . . :thumbup:

 

But more big grey clouds comming from the west. :thumbdown:

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I was out on the SR26 Mercenary after many years of "gentleman's sailing" on Revolution. Fortunately Sean had taken me out on a Richmond winter series race the previous week so we had a chance to call that practise. With 5 SRs and Motorboat the screaming favourite it was looking like a good race was in order. We were both down to the boat early on Sat and got ready. Noticing the lack of activity on G Pier we found out there had been the postponement. So back home to dry out the wet weather gear and have another coffee.

Out to the start. Code 0. Correct. #2 wrong, so we did a change out on the way to Rangi Light. This got us a bit low which we didn't mind as we wanted to protect the left. However watching all the other SRs lifting inside us and tacking back to Rangi had us talking, but staying patient. Eventually got the shift and laid through to the Noises. This was nice, and while Motorboat was still ahead it wasn't by much and we had a clutch of 88s and Ross 930s around us. Then we took our place in the parking lot watching the rich get richer and glad we weren't on the boats behind us to the Ahaas. Decided on the Code 0 for the trip to Waiheke which was the correct call. Had to do a back up as we came past Sergeants which lost a bit of ground but needed to be done as we could feel the weed. Lumped the #1 to Rocky and had a steadily dying flat run all the way to Browns. Never stopped but only just and did good things to the 88s around us. Then finished with a lovely reach home, passing another 88, a 1020 and finishing on the tail of a few boats that had been well in front at Rocky. Well done to Motorboat, Sailor Moon and those that took advantage of being in front to stretch further. We were very happy with being 2nd SR26 and to be 2nd in fleet was a great reward for a busy day in the rain.

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hey KM I went out and spent up large on some updated safety gear and you couldnt be bothered putting your cocoa down, fastening up your dressing gown and popping your head out of the heated cabin for a miserable how do you do, honestly they must pay you too much :mrgreen:
Every dog will have it's day, best you don't stop barking just yet fella. Knot to mention what way to get yourself to the top of the hit list (if there was one) :lol: :lol:

 

You wouldn't want to be paying the RC, some were checking the weather at 5am and still going 22hrs later as the last boat crossed the line. Things they do to give you some fun and make sure everyone gets home safely. Just think of the overtime bill.

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Shorthaul Sports Race Report - The Entertainer

 

I must admit that when I woke on Saturday morning I was planning just how little sail I could put up and/or whether I should just chuck the bloody thing in as it was still blowing it's tits off in Browns Bay.

 

Just as I arrived at Westhaven at 7am I got the FB post RE the postponment which by this time it had notably dropped off. So Colin and I sat and talked boats for the wait in the car and nervously checked the nowcasting oh and enjoyed a bacon and egg sanga - thanks again Col.

 

The next challenge was to get rigged and moving without getting too damned wet and cold as the rain was still persisting down.

 

The rain lifted by the time we were in the start sequence so that was good.

 

Had an ok start, possibly a bit too far to leeward than what I'd wanted but in the front row. Boat didn't feel flash off the line and I quickly realised in a forehead-slapping moment that I hadn't put the motor up! OK, settle back down after a bit of choice cursing and found a lane, if not a bit lower than I'd've liked. A few Code 0's out at this point, so a bit of sail-envy, which I stuffed away by concentrating on my tell tails.

 

The work from Rangi light was not bad for us our pace seemed OK and we chose a couple of good tacks trying to squeeze the most out of the tide. Crossed tacks with No Worries a few times until they chose the Motutap shore which didn't work out so well. Overstood a bit coming in to The Noiseys and got slowly picked off by Grunt Machine who had good pace in the conditions which were about 10-15 from the North/Eish and a decent 2-3m swell.

 

Had a bit of a shocker heading out to the Aaha's as the breeze died out and swung more to the east. The rich got really rich at this point. We opted for a change up to the #1 which really should have been our sail of choice out of the start-box. Rounded with a few 88's and settled in to tight two-sail reach across the bay to Matiatia with Cold Pizza and coke...nice.

 

Went too high in the waiheke coast and lost all the ground we'd gained on not a bad leg so a few more choice curses were flying out the back and at the sails and the wind gods. We joked that there aren't enough people on board to hand the helm to when you're going badly, too often the conversation went:

"do you wanna steer for a while??"

"Yeah nah not really"...takes over. 5 minutes later:

"do you wanna go now?"

"Yeah nah"...

 

Anyway, a bit overpowered with the #1 coming in to Rocky Bay until it started to die about 5 minutes out. Had seen Motorboat go flying past with the big gear up downwind and then GruntMachine a bit later. Excellent hoist of the big gear.

 

About 1/2 an hour into the flat-off, with it just keeping on dying, nervous jokes about getting to the finish with the sun coming up which kept getting worse as it died in the arse down by Browns. It took a few desperate gybes to get round the Browns light trying to keep the kite full with the apparent.

 

Snuck in a little gybe away from Browns and a 1020 (I think. It was dark) that was plaguing us and found a gentle puff which we held onto all the way in past Bean Rock to finish about 7.30pm

 

Great race, thanks SSANZ! Boat wasn't holding us back. Great company, Colin has more stories than Walt Disney and deals with my outbursts really well.

 

Looking forward to the next one, hopefully on The Entertainer.

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Motorboat Shorthaul 2 race report.

 

Really who would have ever thought that this race would have been sailed in a light E-NE breeze, sure the rain was expected but not the breeze.....

 

Shorthaul 2 and the Y88 fleet starts together which has its positives and negatives, positives of more boats to gauge your performance on but negatives of a busy aggressive startline and traffic.

Anyway, we got a clear start at the right end of the line. With the wind just forward of the beam at about 6kts. We just had the #1 genoa on but had the zero out to the end of the prod and ready to go. Sailormoon was up to weather and close to rolling us, it was light enough that clear air was very important so we worked hard at maintaining our lane. We hoisted the zero for a few minutes which enabled us to just stay clear of sailormoon. When we got the knocking breeze on the other side of Rangi we went back to the headsail but the boat didn’t feel all that good and we slowly got rolled by Sailormoon, after a quick tack to the shore to clear our air and we then got rolled by another Y88. We were struggling to get to our boat speed numbers (both Damon and I have sailed the boats enough to know what speeds an SR26 should be doing!) so did a quick weed check, sure enough there was a big dirty bit of weed wrapped on the keel. We did a quick backup to clear the keel which but put us right back in the pack and we had to work hard to find clear lanes and get back into it. We were very wary of the left hand side of the track as we could envisage an aggressive left hand shift at some stage. Surprisingly the first shift was actually a right hander which got us back into the game. There was getting to be a big split in the fleet with mercenary and grunt machine a long way to the left of us, Rattle, gaucho, no worries, entertainer and a few others to the right. We had decided early on that our best strategy was to just play the fleet and not the sides. Make sure we don’t give too much leverage to the competition as the breeze really could do absolutely anything at anytime.... You might lose occasionally to a boat on the fringe of the course but long term it was about minimising loss. Giving that theory we had to keep a loose cover on the right hand side of the course where most of our competition was. This gave good leverage to the left hand boats and sure enough the next shift was a BIG left hander giving them a gain. We were in the middle of the track lifting hard on port tack heading towards Rakino island. We thought about banging back into it as there was still more left hand pressure on the left side of the track but would have consolidated a huge loss so we just kept going and be patient. This was a good move as we lifted right up to the noiseys and laid right through on port. The boats below us suffered quite hard as they got the shift much latter and were below the lay having to take a punishing tack back.

From there to the Ahaahaa’s it was painfull sailing. The wind lightened off and went forward, then the seaway turned huge and sloppy. We tried the code zero but with that seaway it just didn’t work so we went back to the genoa and concentrated hard. I lay on the floor below to keep the weight centred and low while Damon tried to extract whatever speed he could out of the boat. Eventually we just sneaked around the Ahaahaa’s with little room to spare and next to war machine who were having a great race. We went for the masthead gennaker for the leg from there to Waiheke. This is a 15+ year old sail and very big and baggy, not that ideal for the tight reach but at least we were powered up! We got about halfway before having to drop it and 2 sail the rest of the way then upwind for the last bit.

At the bottom of Waiheke the boat felt a bit sticky again so we did another backup and the Motorboat felt like a weapon once again. We could see the boats in Tamaki straight were all well lifted in more left hand breeze so we wanted to be inside that shift. We were the only boat to bang back hard inshore a few times to come out almost right on the point but staying out enough to be in the incoming current that flows in an easterly direction through Tamaki Straight (opposite to what you might think). It seems to me that you always want to be on the inside of any corner. You could see the river of current going with us pushing against the breeze causing a short sharp chop. We short tacked in the tide lines a few times and made some gains. The wind was steadily building and we had around 14kts, certainly top end of the #1 genoa while 2 handed. The last part of the beat we were ragging the main hard and pretty overpowered but it was not worth a headsail change. Sailor moon banged hard right and had benefited by a substantial right hand shift that had all of us overlaid into rocky bay bouy. We lumped it to the mark and hoisted the big kite for the run home. Our plan of each taking a full kit of dry clothes paid off as we both got changed and felt fresh and ready to go. Nothing worse than being completely cold and sodden. The run to the finish was a nice way to end the day, happy hour and the soundcheck playlist cranking on the stereo as the sun went down. A few gybes to avoid tide lines and maximise small windshifts in the lightening breeze. From browns island to bean rock was very light, it went aft quite dramatically and we did well out of an early soak when the breeze was further forward and had a better angle into bean rock.

We finished at 6:22 and got the gun for Shorthaul 2. We had a feeling that it was going to be a rich get richer situation here with the tide about to turn and the wind shutting down but were stoked to see the final handicap results with a win on corrected time by almost an hour.

We had drunk way too much and had the stereo cranked up loud for the whole race. Good times aboard the Motorboat and a rum fest that went well into the night. Luckily we managed to drag a few other crews down with us....

As usual the boat was immaculately prepared by Damon.

 

Big thanks to the SSANZ team and other volunteers on the Comittee boat for spending a day and night in the rain so we could go out and have fun.

Bring on the next race.

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We had drunk way too much and had the stereo cranked up loud for the whole race. I lay on the floor below to keep the weight centred and low while Damon tried to extract whatever speed he could out of the boat.

 

Fixed it :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Vooms Baltic 50 Race Report

 

In summary, much like Tack hammers – Crap!

 

However, that’s kinda dull reading, and I always enjoy reading how others got on, so will bash out a few words of how we got on.

 

Got up bright and early, made coffee, got the text it was postponed, went back to bed. When I got up again, it was a much more reasonable time, and my lovely wife got up and cooked me a hearty breakfast. I mention this in the race report, as it may have been the highlight of the day. But on to the race.

 

By the time the multis got underway at 1130, breeze had dropped out to almost nothing. The breeze dropped in the minutes before the start gun, and due to lucky placement close to the boat, we got a glamour start.

 

Took a while to get to rangi light, and by then only freedom was behind us, and even then, only boat lengths back. For the first 3 or so miles we could easily lay Navy buoy, and things were not too bad. Fairly awful seas, but we managed to dodge a heavy shower drenching the boats to the East. Then we got knocked. Then the breeze dropped. Then the breeze dropped more. We were about 1.5 miles from navy buoy, just wallowing in the seas, with no idea of wind direction, if any. Eventually a light southerly filled in, and we hoisted the kite. 2 gybes later we rounded navy buoy, an hardened up under kite to head to Gannet. This was about 3pm and we knew we were in for a looooong day. Then a northerly came in, which made for a few interesting gybes?Tacks? I dunno. Spin around a few times, drop kite and then realise we have an Easterly and were pointing north to the middle of tiri. A slow knock and eventually we tacked over, and could lay gannet. Then we got knocked, couldn’t make the north side of the Ahaas, and headed in toward the bay east of onetangi. Took a long board in to waiheke, and saw Stealth heading out, and Taeping heading home. We tacked on a knocked and realised if the breeze held we may have overlaid, but given the variability in the breeze weren’t too concerned.

 

Breeze was slowly dropping as we got to gannet, went around just after 6pm, about 10-12 mins behind stealth and the breeze dropped out completely again. Kite was dropped and we wallowed around trying to find a direction that gave us drive. We seemed to have light westerly, and for a while were heading Northish. Saw freedom pull out and start motoring home, presumably as they couldn’t get around gannet? Eventually alight NW came in, and we could had where we wanted to. A couple of hours, and a couple of kite hoists later, we were at Motutapu discussing if that boat not far in front was in fact stealth mission. The tide was running out pretty hard by now, and we had a pretty tough time getting past issy bay, with speed on the GPS down to 0.0 a number of times. As we got off browns, wind was nothing again, and we managed to sneak up beside Stealth. Slight change and they went from kite to screecher, we went from big kite to small kite to jib and tacked away and headed north. Found a few gently puffs, tacked over, hoisted kite and crept to finish 11 hours after we started (10:30pm) and just in front of stealth.

 

In the multis, we had 6 starters, 5 finishers. Excess and Charleston blasted around the course in 6 hours something, with Charleston coming in first on line, not far in front of excess. A couple of hours back to Taeping, and then many more hours back to us last 2.

 

All in all, it was a long, cold, wet, frustrating, nauseating day. Thanks to the SSANZ guys and gals running the show and to Craig (crew)for sticking out a pretty challenging day. Hope the next race has more breeze and less rain, we will definitely have more food and more clothes on board.

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Rafferty Rules race was a mixed bag. Early at the start so got rolled by everyone. Although for once it was nice that all the rolling boats were the same size as us rather than twice the size as what usually happens.

We popped the zero out and proceeded to roll back over people towards rangi light.

Then went to the no1 and couldn't get the numbers happening. It was only when a piedy starting catching us that it dawned on me that we might have weed on. Did a big back up but in hindsight I don't think we got it all off. By this stage crocodile, nexus, fx and settlers had all done a bit of a horizon job on us.

 

It all seemed ok ( except the numbers still weren't great) and we seemed to be lifting nicely towards haystack on port tack.

Got near to haystack when a fairly grunty squall came through ( and knocked us) and we popped a reef in. 10 minutes later we shook the reef out as the wind lightened again. Took about a million tacks to get around haystack. Once around haystack we knocked and then parked up in sloppy seas and heard the rich get richer as they called in at crusoe rock. We reached down to crusoe and again the wind seemed to head us and then desert us as an e7.9 rolled over us in breeze and the piedys caught us again bringing breeze down with them.

 

At Crusoe it looked tight so we put up the gennakker and then peeled to the mast head kite as it shifted aft. We manged to drop the piedy's behind us and started catching the e7.9. went around Motu korea with the number 1 and unrolled our fractional zero for a bit more horsepower which seemed to work well for a lay to Illomama. Then around Illomama for the last reach to the finish where we started with the code zero and then peeled to the masthead kite as the wind deserted us again.

 

Interesting conditions. I've been playing with sail set ups and have cut down an old number one off faster coyote into a fractional code zero which seems to work well to unroll while doing sail peels. I wonder how much drag I create by leaving it up upwind though and would I be much better to drop it on the foredeck when going upwind. The advantage is that if the winds backs at all we can just unroll it.

 

I think I need to be more mindful of my target speeds and react faster when I think something is wrong.

 

Thanks for delaying the start race committee good decision.

Well done on the other competitors the small boat fleet is seriously competitive this year.

Thanks to the volunteers on the start boat.

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Rocky.

What Fun.

Really enjoyed being wet and cold with no wind.

Was a busy start line the pin end was definitely the place to be but were a bit early and starting to get boxed in by a gaggle of 88's so bailed out and started closer to the centrer of the line not too late. Watched the boats with zeros pop them up and make some nice little gains took us a while to get clear air but eventually settled in close-ish to Rangi. Could see Mercenary out to the left under Zero and thought we had them for a while. The Breeze start dropping on the left so we made a little dig in towards Rakino and found some nice breeze, the Rain then started to close in as we approached the Noises and everyone disappeared into the merc. I think the boats on the left made some good gains here as when the rain cleared they were well ahead. We ended up short tacking in slop and very little wind to clear the Noises and Ahaa's in close company with the Rattle, Cool Change and No Worries, did this for a while and were not making much ground so took a long board into the Ahaa's and made a nice little gain to lead the other guys around. No Worries cleared off on the tight reach back towards Waiheke but were dropping off the Rattle until they hoisted a Zero and pulled us back in and were roughly side by side going through Motuihe, we were getting lifted close to Waiheke but it was very gusty and Rattle were rolling us further out in more favourable tide so we put the Bow down a bit and dipped them to get in the more steady breeze and better tide, this worked as we started to drop them off again. The Breeze started to build towards Rocky Bay, we watched the Rattle opt for a head sail change but didn't think this would be worthwhile so lugged the main for a while, we could see Motorboat and Mercenary coming around the mark in reasonable breeze so thought we might get a nice ride back. Wrong! as we approached the mark quietly happy we had Rattle and Cool Change tucked away we could see the Breeze was dying again, No Worries was stalled coming out of the Mark so we had to steer around them but managed to keep our way on enough to be on top of them as we hoisted the Kite, had to run very hot angles in the dying breeze on port gybe to keep moving we soldiered on but could see the others closer to shore had better breeze so we took our medicine and gybed across behind them and made some nice gains back running angles and gybing down the Waiheke shore, things got very tight between Browns and Motuihe but we didn't want to drop the kite so we just strapped it in, we watched Cool Change and the Rattle with Genakkers or Zero's roll us again in here but there was nothing we could do but follow them into the finish.

Great race all the same, thanks to the Guys and Girls at SSANZ for organising what looks to be another great series.

Thanks to the Motorboat Guys for the hospitality and entertainment, we will stay the Saturday night in AKL next time so we don't have to stay sober for the drive home.

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Wild Oats Report - Crap

 

Bad start, was looking for the pin end at 90 degrees to the course but it was way back, my fault. After Rangi light went for height but this was wrong as we should have tried getting to Whangaparaoa as fast as we could. By the time we had got to where the left hander could have helped us, it had gone right. Around the Aha's and we end up back on the wind to Park Point. Watched the leaders coming past us with kites up. Wind was south east, tacked to shore to get the inevitable left hander, it went right, sucked up a big one to get right, wind went left (see a pattern here)

 

Came around Rocky bay and the wind goes North West, at least we got on a code0 to the finish and passed a few boats, best part of the race. Never used a kite or genny.

 

Soaking wet, freezing, crap result overall but not too bad in division (9th line 7th hcp, could have been worse)

 

Roll on next race....

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Rattle n Rum

This was our first real race on the Rattle since Noisy brought it last year, and we probably should have taken it out a few more times beforehand with the race sails. The bulk of the pre race was spent sailing around looking at other SR's to see what headsail they had on, we weren't even sure if the 10kts we had was too much for the No.1 2 handed. Ended up going for the No. 2 pre start (wrong call, made worse by the wind easing rapidly).

 

By the time we had the zero set up, was 2 minutes to the start, and ended up too far down the line and a little late. Had the zero out of the start, but wasn't going as fast as we could since had my weight off the rail changing to the one. Ended up back in the fleet rounding Rangi light. Pulled a bit of weed off the rudder after seeing Motorboat backing up (lucky it was only 600 down).

 

We went alright upwind, until the wind shifted and we had overlayed the Noises, bore off, then the wind shifted well back right and ended up beating round the Noisies and Ahaaha's in light slopp. Made worse by the rain sticking the woolies to sail.

 

Eventually hoisted the zero on the reach to Waiheke, hitting our top speed of 9kts for the day, making back up some ground on Rocky after screwing around deciding what to put up.

 

We were overpowered on the beat up to Rocky bay, and swapped down to the No. 2 which was great until the wind dropped off again to 5kts 10mins later.

 

Drifted down the run (night time now) with the (much too) big Mumm 36 kite, that spent half its time sitting in the water under the bow. Ended up well in towards Pine harbour thinking we'd gype through 90 deg in those conditions, which we didn't (and the wind shifted). Came rocketing back doing 6kts in about 6kts of breeze under zero to make it round Browns Island, where we came across Rocky (again) who had driffed down the middle of the course under kite. Passed Rocky and a few others under zero carrying our apparent wind through towards Bean rock

 

Quick peal to the geneker before just Bean, and through to the finish, mid fleet on line and handicap, and being beaten by the first SR by 2hours.

 

Leasons learnt:- stay in the middle of the course in shifty conditions, don't change sails unless you really have to, and a Mumm 36 kite is just way too big.

 

Thanks to the SSANZ and the race committe, great event you put on as shown by the huge turnout.

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Any comments on the start line bias? What was the thinking behind putting the windward end of the line ahead of the leeward end?

 

I guess it was good for taking photos and videos since all the boats were bunched up at one end, instead of spread along the line! :D

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in the interest of enjoying others' reporst and bad typing, here is my bit fr the small boats

had a great theory about wind backinf NE to NW - so a bad hypothesis as it transpires, had a great start at the comm boat end after expecting to get squeezed but the low boats were snoozing, pushed them down and got 30m of space so the windward squeeze got us an escape an we were to windward and off. code bluddy zeros are a pain and should be banned unless someone buys me one! they started gettng away but we hngon the wind egde under rangi and were close enough to fx to be happy. the platu thingy was creeping up on the rangi shore which is not allowed as farrs do not beat elliotts. we successfully dummied a change from 1 to 3 and got the platu to change down and that was the last we saw of them (footnote - go elliotts). hard to know how we were doing north of rangi but faster coyote was in sight and unitec was behind us and fx still is sight so just hung in until haystack. messed up dropping off and heade before haystack so had to tack and lost to fx and the carpenter. crap going doing to crusoe, winf seemed to be as undecisive as we were, sails up and down to no avail. after crusoe ran the kite and had a good leg to haul in the other 2. funny squall hit before motukorea and we were a bit overpowered (can one be?) hardening up to iliomama under #1 but to much loss to change n a short leg. gybed for dash to orakei but spinnaker call was wrong, should hve gone gennaker liek fx and carpenter, so couldnot catch them. last race was between the three of us and the comm boat as to who would get to orakei first :wtf: wind stopped about 50m after finish so very lucky! good race but next one westie jim has to do foredeck!

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Report from Wild!

Crap to start off and than I injured my knee wind died and we retired from the race... Couldn't get worse...

Tried self medicating with rum on the way home and than run out of rum... Carried on trying to self medicate on mixers but that didn't work that well...

On the positive note, looks like the cartilage is ok and I will be ready-ish by the next race...

Thanks to SSANZ for organising a great event!

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Well, a real mixed bag of a day for Steve & I on "Forever" Best sail was actually down from Gulf Harbour at 6.30am, when most of the fleet was tucked up in bed! I met Steve on the boat at GH at 6.20am, and we chatted about the risks listening to the forecast - and decieded to at least poke our nose out and see what it was like. We knew to make a 9.05am start we had to leave by 6.30am, especially with an out going tide. We tucked 2 reefs in the main and within a few minutes were in 2-3 meter lumpy easterly swell...but no real wind! As we got away from the headland, the breeze picked up but really no more than 18-25 knots...certainly not 60knots forecast! So we headed into the city. Didnt get a chance to check the phone for the text message delaying the start (text arrived at 6.40am!)...but all the same a great little sail in. Once past Rangi we realised we had another 2 hours to kill...so we difted around in the rain. Once we got the start underway with full rig, we had a good reech out to Rangi - keeping up with our fleet nicely, but as we tightened up found Forever was a tad slow in the lump. We deceided to split from the fleet and head up the shoreline - which in hind sight , was the wrong way. We got massive wind shifts all the wrong way and we simply watched as the whole fleet sailed around us. That was when we started the first rums....For Shorthaul 2 - we ended up basically tacking the entire way round except for a short reech from Ahaa Rocks to Waiheke and a tight kite ride from Bean Rock to the finish....not the ideal conditions we thought we were going to have. Crappy result - but pleased we finished and did not take the easy way out home. Next time - stick with the fleet dumbo. Anyway - a well run race - we could have in hind sight started at 9am - the winds were lessening by then - but saftey first. Well done to the race committee and volunteers. :clap: Might have to try harder on the next one!

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