Auckland to Tauranga Race

[benny14 6]

Anyone know why VodaBoat pulled out?

[gopher 0]

Not enough wind to break the record time

[ballystick 20]

Smudge looks to have finished - phew!

[ballystick 20]

Results out now http://www.yacht.org.nz/auckland_tauranga_race_results 

[Battleship 97]

Some shots heading out of the Gulf nice start for us but sailed into a hole and parked it near the Mercs. Lovely sailing weather for the most part.

 

[ballystick 20]

You were looking good going out Rangi channel!

[Delacruz 1]

R&B a VERY BIG THANKS to you for coming to assist us on the upturned hulls of Superbird after our capsize off Matakana Island, when you were so close to the finishing the race. Thanks for draging our sorry arses onboard, making the necessary calls to race control and coastgaurd etc and the rum was just what we needed and am looking forward to returning the favour to Josh and crew when I get back on my feet. Thanks also to Nigel and team at Tauranga Yacht Club for helping with salvage options a meal and dry clothes and liasing with the authorities which really helped to take the strain off us.

 

Thanks again 

Graeme

[Black Panther 697]

What happened?

[Battleship 97]

BP see the thread in the multi section http://crew.org.nz/forum/index.php/topic/11698-superbird-to-cruz/?do=findComment&comment=151384

[johnMi 2]

I thought I would just give you a bit of an insight into the race from 'Sledges' perspective.
The Crew consisted of me, Dean Williamson (owner of Hurts) and Grant Williams a fellow member of BOPTYS.
The start was VERY light with us, Vodafone and Superbird to cruz taking off in the Multi Division. For the 1st time in my life after about 20min of sailing we were actually ahead of vodafone for a (very) short period of time. We seemed to drift down the harbour pretty efficiently, battling our mainsail most of the way (Top battens wouldn't pop through with no wind).
We followed Vodafone up to Rangi Light and only then were we overtaken by V5.
I think Vodafone realised a new race record was not going to be achieved so they pulled out about 2 hrs into the race. We were only about 300 metres behind them at this stage.
Once the wind got over 5 knots we pulled out the jib and stored the code 0. We sailed to Channel Is for the rest of the daylight hours in less than 10 knots. The weather was beautiful and we were visited frequently by dolphins.
We were 19th around Channel Island.
As night fell and we were around Channel Island, we set the genniker and enjoyed a beautiful sail with a full moon, and a nice (warm) breeze. Because we expected to sail at hotter angles than the monos, we decided to sail outside the Mercs, which gave us a good breeze all the way down the coast, getting some good double figure no's on the log.
By Slipper Island we had worked our way to 6th.
 At about Slipper (I think) we swapped to a code 0, where the wind increased a little bit so we were sailing at about 14 knots at times.
The seas started to get quite lumpy for some reason and I was concerned with the slamming and bashing so we went to the jib. About Waihi we went back to the Code 0 and crossed the line about 8.00 am. We finished 6th.
Unfortunately sometime during the day Superbird to Cruise was hit with a bullet of wind that flipped her, so we ended up being the sole finisher in the Multi division.