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2014 SSANZ SAS Series Evolution 100


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The only other constructive advice I could offer would be that the course board be displayed on the bow/non-startline side of the committee boat or by flags. For reasons explained earlier, we were a little late getting out there and boats were already starting. We couldn't go round the back of the committee boat without interfering in other divisions starts so we nudged in to the side. We could see the board from the back which had a #2 on the side I could see, but I didn't know if it had a #1 on the other side or #2. So I asked and got told #1.

 

But a very well run series as always. The course was cool for us. Little Barrier looked impressive with all the waterfalls and the forecast was always going to shift south for a beat home. Dolphins were impressive, and it's a nice touch that every boat finishing gets a horn :thumbup:

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No offence taken

The decision was made for the average boat in the Shorthaul not for every indidual boat

The multis decided to sail the shorter course and we weren't about to send you off on your own as you fall over from time to time and we don't need boat going in four different directions ( 3 is enough to keep tabs on )

 

The average SH boat got a beat, reach, run, reach, closing to a beat, which sounds like a yacht race to me.

 

The multi guys have been given lots of options but have chosen to sail SH, on this occasion they would have been best to have done long haul, maybe we need to talk more ?

 

Phil point taken, the number boards could have been done better but I announced the course options at 0830 hrs on VHF, we displayed the boards (but couldn't change the number until the first start had happened) and all who asked where told

 

Anyway I'm having a great time in Spain and we found Django yesterday.

image.jpg

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excess report.

 

Had a reaching contest with Triple 8 at the start to avoid being rolled. Lost 200m to Charleston and Taeping along Motutapu coast by being low. Just less wind I think.

 

The leg to Little Barrier was a little tricky to keep the boat smooth because the traveller was at the end stop or close to it, so there was little margin before easing mainsheet.

 

Charleston had an small edge in speed, Taeping between us. A bit of excitement watching Taeping carry their gennaker tight eventually reaching over our bow about 2 lengths ahead.

 

The weather models predicted lighter air by LB, and the Nowcasting consistently reported variable at Mokohinaus. However the breeze held nicely and once gennaker was hoisted we soaked inside Taeping. They gybed early towards the northern point, but lost ~300m - lighter?

 

After gybing with about 1nm clearance to the point had good speed closing in on Charleston. However a pin fell out of the board control line and we spent quite a while slopping in the waves getting it back in. Maintenance!

 

Started sailing again level with Borderline and Stealth Mission but about a mile to leeward; Triple 8 ~800m in front? 888 stretched in a low fast mode, but we gained later when they had to tack a few times, whereas we laid through from Little Barrier.

 

Different breezes and tide, but our time back from LB was a few minutes slower than Charleston.

 

Thanks very much to the organisers and competitors, we'll be back.SSANZ LBarrier2014.jpg

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Rafferty Rules had a great day. Awesome course and interesting conditions. The day was started with a really nice motor down in the sunrise and dolphin visitations.

Got a nice start and managed to do 2 tacks straight to the lay around Motutapu. Then noticed all the boats parking on the edge of Rakino passage and managed to sneak around in the wind and we were fourth to the gennaker run. We the n proceeded to pick up another Elliot 7.9 on the run so ended up third at navy buoy. Stoked!

Then came the 6 hour beat to Tarakihi island. So slowly we saw our placing disappear on the upwind. I'm going to play around with the mast rake as I had another R780 owner on board and we both thought the boat could go faster upwind. I also think she was quicker upwind with the old mast ( the one we lost last year on this race). As we approached Gannet rock the wind lifted and increased, and we managed to crack off and get a bit of pace on. Popped a tuck in the main and then changed to the number 2 jib as we rounded gannet. The chop and a solid 25 knots omn the nose really hurt us and the piedies and substance slipped past. Once past hook bay the wind eased and we shook the reef out and made up some ground and managed to get past substance again just as we went round Tarakihi island. It was REALLY nice to get onto a reach.

A nice 2 sail lay up past Ponui island, then up with the fractional zero, and up with the gennaker 10 minutes later saw us leave substance behind and get past nocturne. we're back.

The wind headed us as we cruised down tamaki so it was back to the fractional zero while we set up the mast head zero. two sets of kite sheets in the dark calls for some spectacular organization on the foredeck well done karl.

Out with the mast head zero, in with the fractional ( love roller furlers) and the boat was feeling really good. Red lights coming up, piedy 1 behind us, piedy 2 behind us. Listening on the radio nexus and flasher just in front, good stuff.

 

As we rounded browns island the wind headed us again so we tightened up the zero stillfelt good so we stuck with it. Then changed the masthead for the fractional zero sheeted in tight ( LOVE ROLLER FURLERS). laying bean rock and then laying finish. WICKED!!

Gave the rum bottle a solid nudge on the way home. Very cool race ssanz a bit of everything. fantastically run and great curses for the small boat fleet.

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Motorboats Evolution 100 report.

Somehow on this race we needed to get 3 points on The Entertainer to win the series. Earlier in the week there was a glimmer of hope when some of the forecasts showed variable breezes but sadly when the time came a nice 10-15kt ESE breeze was blowing. We were hoping for Course 2 to try and get some different angles so we could use our extensive sail inventory to our advantage but with Course 1 our options were going to be limited so it was going to come down to getting the basics right and working hard.

We got away to a perfect start at the boat end and held our lane nicely. We had watched the divisions in front and noticed the right hand side appeared to be paying while the left was very light and some boats had completely parked closer to rangi so we were one of the first boat to tack. It all appeared to be great and although Trex had showed some great pace and had passed us we were still happy with our position. Unfortunately we watched our 2 main competitors lay all the way up through Motuihe passage in one board from the start and gain a huge advantage, this was going to be hard to peg back. By the time we cleared Motutapu they were long gone and we couldn’t even tell which boats they were. The wind was fairly light so we hoisted the Code Zero and settled in for the long reach to Little barrier. At times we were pretty overpowered with the Zero but we hung in and made some gains on the boats around us. The wind had slowly built and also swung aft slightly and although we were still pressed up with the zero we decided the masthead gennaker would be a better sail with more forward pull rather than sideways. This proved to be the best sail and we pulled away from Trex and Mercenary who were just behind but we really had to work it hard. There was a bit of a sea way running and it was trying to kick the stern around, combined with a tight angle and a few puffs it was hard work with plenty of trimming and hiking.

There had been a big split in the fleet with a bunch of boats taking the low road, a bunch taking the middle road and a few who had stayed very high going above the Noisies. It was hard to know who was going to do better but we were happy with our line and were heading straight at the mysterious Little barrier island. We wondered if the low boats were doing the wrong course and thought that it must have been our 2 main competitors The Entertainer and Grunt Machine as we couldn’t see them ahead. Towards the middle of the course the breeze lightened and came aft slightly and for a while there we thought that it might be a VMG run into the island which might favour the lower boats. Channel island had been reading 25-27kts for a while so we thought there could be some puff further down the track and sure enough from about 5nm out of little barrier the breeze started building until we were way over powered and going 20 degrees down on course at 10-12kts. We held on as long as we could and dropped the gennaker about half a nm short of the island and 2 sail reached back up. To our surprise here we found out that the only boats in front of us were much bigger boats in the cruising division. So we were the first shorthaul racing boat to little barrier. There were 2 red gennakers a mile or so behind us which we guessed were Wild Oats and the Entertainer. We were going to have to work hard to gain as much as we could going around the island if we were to have any chance of holding these much bigger Ross 930s out on the leg home.

As soon as we had enough room below us we re-hoisted the mast head gennaker and were off. The island looked pretty magical with waterfalls coming off the sheer cliffs straight into the sea and the whole island covered under a dense layer of cloud. Not long after we set the gennaker we started working on setting up the spinnaker as it was going to swing aft as we came around the island. We did a quick peel to the spinnaker followed by a gybe in some good puff and large waves. As the wind had built we decided to change to the #2 jib down the run, it was reasonably hairy surfing down the waves at speeds up to 14kts with a guy on the bow and only one in the cockpit. We didn’t have much time to admire the spectacular scenery and before we knew it we had rounded the island and were thinking about the drop. The big cruisers were just ahead and had taken the wider option to try and get out of the lee of the island but we saw breeze in close so did a quick drop and hardened up to take the inside road and almost overtake most of the cruisers who were locked together and having a great race. We were quite lifted after clearing the island and the breeze was up to 15-20kts with a sloppy seaway, we were glad that we had made the change to the #2 headsail. We really were hoping that it would end up being a beat home as we know just how much faster the other boats are than us on a reach after taking a punishment in race 2. We were just cracked at that stage but the breeze slowly went forward and lightened, we were pretty quick to change back to the #1 as the sloppy seaway was killing the boat speed. As we approached Kawau we were struggling to lay so put it in a high mode and just cleared. From there we laid through to Whangaparoa and mixed in with the long haul boats who were also on their beat home. This made it very hard to see who was who and we had no idea where the pack of fast approaching boats from shorthaul were. They had gained quite a bit in the first 5 hrs of the leg but we were doing everything we could to hold them off. The tide really wasn’t favouring us as we came into Tiri passage fighting plenty of tide while it had started to ease then eventually change when a bulk of our fleet came through. This compressed the fleet and we could see a huge mass of red and green lights not far behind. We stuck close to the Whangaparoa side of Tiri passage and made gains on some of the long haul boats around us. Its demoralising not knowing if the boats that were screaming past us were in our division or not! We did a couple of backups during the beat when we were struggling for numbers, always afterwards the boat felt much better again, maybe it was just a re-trim and mindset thing but it sure seemed to work. We did a tack into the north shore to get out of the tide and then headed back into the middle of the channel as the tide turned to maximise the effect. From there we just short tacked up the middle of the channel playing the shifts. When we radioed in for our one hour call we hear The Entertainer radio in shortly after us so we knew that was most likely the end of the series for us as we still owe them a lot of time on PHRF. As we approached the line we were sure that we still had line honours which was confirmed with a gun from the committee boat and a hearty ‘well done’ yelled through the dark. We worked out that we owed them around 9min so patiently waited listening to the VHF. They were 5min behind us which was not enough, and with that went any chance of the handicap win. The next SR26 was half an hour behind but still beat us on Handicap by 25minutes and a steady stream of boats being brought in with the tide and finishing way to close to us dropped us back to 4th on handicap. Final series results were 1st on line and 2nd on handicap.

Once again an SR26 took out the sports division of the SSANZ triple series on line as well as fastest elapsed time by almost an hour (3 and a half hours faster than the next SR26). That in itself is a pretty big honour to be fastest as well as one of the smallest sports keelers in Auckland!

We had sailed a faultless series and confident there was nothing more we could have done. Its satisfying putting together a series like that. Well done to The Entertainer who took out the top spot on handicap.

Another fantastic series run by SSANZ, thanks to the volunteers on the start and finish boat and for Tom Coote for lending his boat to the team for the start and finishes.

Also big thanks to Damon for his faultless boat preparation. The little Motorboat is a minter and incredibly well setup. I just love those SR26’s!

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