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Saling the Legend


Megwyn

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Indeed Ballystick.

 

We have been sitting on a mooring down by the bridge since Sunday afternoon. This morning we dropped the mooring in a strong westerly, and motored around to Sulphur Point to the multi trolley.

 

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Thanks Rigger - would be great to meet you. Himself is working his day job during the week, so it is sanding full on this weekend. And maybe Friday. Afternoons/evenings if he finishes work early.

 

Next weekend she will hopefully be ready to paint. :D

 

Only time for antifoul this time. It will have to be touch-ups only on the topsides.

 

 

M

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Wooohooo - Sailing day . .. . Who cares?

 

Himself decided it was imperitive that we hoist some sails on the super yacht today, so we headed on down to the mooring to find a strong SW blowing across the bay. Luckily, it was not as strong as yesterday, so we clambored into the dinghy and motored down to the yacht, with waves spashing over the side of the dinghy.

 

Wet from the saddlebags down, we arrived at RO, and set about setting up. Himself timed us. It took one hour from when we left home until when we dropped the mooring.

 

Motoring with a moderately strong side wind, we made our way out towards the entrance. I headed us into the wind to hoist the main, then eased her back around to face out over the bar just as a gust came through and threw the boom right across the boat, with the main sheet flying and the traveller bungy going 'PING'. Bugger - another repair!

 

Still, no serious harm done as Himself hauled on the mainsheet and got the boom lift back under control. The wind was now behind us, so I held her about 20 degrees off dead running to prevent accidental jibes. This saw us with a heading direct for the inner marker.

 

Bar nice and flat - a few breakers curling in over the northern banks, so it was a blast out at 12-14kt then tightened up onto a broad reach where we topped out at 15.1kt. A gibe saw us heading NW towards the Northern end of the beach, and surprisingly for me (I always get messed up as to where the wind will 'apparently' be from after a tack/gibe) we were just off hard on.

 

An awesome, wet sail up the beach (the chop was causing breaking waves to come over the bows and it was even getting wet in the cockpit), before we tacked around to head home - again, on the nose.

 

We had some great tacks back into the entrance, with some swift maneouvers to keep us off the sand banks, (more tricky at the moment because the depth sounder box is up in Auckland with Woolfy trying to find out why the wind instrument refuses to work) and decided to sail down the harbour towards Kauri Pt where there is usually a hole when the wind is from the SW, in the hope of dropping the main in relative safety.

 

That done, we sailed under jib only - pulling 4.6-6kts, dropping the jib just before we got to the entrance to our channel.

 

It was great to try out the chart plotter - last weekend Himself had moved it out into the cockpit so we can see it while under sail. A much better alternative to asking the young fella constantly what is happening on the darn thing. Now we might get to learn how to drive it properly. :lol:

 

An awesome day for a blat. 17.3nm in 2 hours. :wink:

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Well, needless to say, we didn't make it to Whangamata today :( . This morning the weather forecast was for rising wind this afternoon, and 25 gusting 35 tomorrow.

 

The decision was made to go for a day sail.

 

To add injury to insult, last night Pebbles the tricat was attacked by another animal, and she was acting sore and nasty in temperament this morning. So a weekend away was a no go.

 

Still, the day dawned clear and bright, with a light breeze, and we headed down to go for a sail. Just before high tide, we dropped the mooring and headed out the channel, raising sails on the way around towards Anzac Bay. Himself decided to play with the Genoa, so up it went.

 

Out across the bar in a NE, we headed first E, and then N. The wind died, leaving us creeping along at 2-3kts in just a little more breeze. Then the wind circled around to the NW, and rose up to 15-16kt, with gusts around 19kts. Needless to say we dropped the Genoa and hoisted the blade jib. We saw gusts up to 20.7kt under full main and jib, and felt comfortable and fully under control at all times.

 

Gee - it's awesome to play with all the toys and see what the TWS is! :D

 

The wind dropped again, so we hoisted the Genni and dropped the jib, sailing on a broad reach pulling 4.5kts in 3.5kts of breeze. After about 1/2 an hour of champagne sailing, we could see a line of chop getting closer. Quickly we dropped the genni and hoisted the jib again to sail home - on the nose in about 17-18kts of breeze.

 

As I was sailing her into the entrance, the wind was swirling around about 50degrees, and gusting up to 18.9kts. Complete concentration was required to prevent backing the jib during a knocking gust! With the swell negligible, at least I had something to concentrate on. :wink:

 

We spent 3.5hrs under sail, had no wind (the nexus read 0.0kts) to 20.7kts (noted), topped out at 13.7kts, and sailed just under 17nm.

Yes - we could have made it to Whangamata today - but would we have made it home tomorrow without scaring the brown stuff out of ourselves? :sailor:

 

For a picture taken during our day out check out our fb page: http://www.facebook.com/RepeatOffenderSailing

 

Till next time . . .

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Charged with assisting where possible to ensure a safe passage for the Tauranga Vikings on their small multis, and reporting on the Tauranga to Athenree part of the Matakana Raid, we dropped Repeat Offenders mooring on Friday morning. We being myself and Mr ColdplayTga. After a late getaway, we slipped south towards the wires right on high tide, racing to get through before the outgoing tide could catch us in a very embarrassing situation.

 

We had a good breeze – up to 25kts – on the nose, making forward motion difficult without a rudder as we traversed the shallowest parts of the harbour. Luckily for me, Mr Coldplay, being of strong Viking build, was able to control the Offender for 85% of the time, successfully keeping her off the hard stuff.

 

Once through into deeper water, with the rudder back in and the sails back up, we enjoyed some perfect reaching conditions, blasting down the harbour at 15kts to arrive down by the bridge at around 1pm.

 

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A bit of slick talking got myself and my bonny wee lassie a ride to the top of town, and Mr CP headed down to the club to make some last minute repairs and adjustments to his mighty centreboarder, while I did that time honoured female thing – shopping.

 

My regular crew showed up at about 17:30 hours with fish and chips, and after a couple of hours up at the club, we spent a balmy summers evening enjoying a glass of wine/beer to the joyful cacophony of trucks clattering over the bridge.

 

Saturday dawned as balmy as Friday ended, and no more quiet. We slipped away around to the yacht club to get orders for the day. The young fella went ashore and got instructions while Himself and I waited out in the channel.

 

Race start was 10:00 hrs. However, the wind had not been informed, and when it decided to come out to play – at around 3-4kts, it was 10:15, and the start race hooter was finally sounded at 10:20hrs.

 

The write up for the Matakana raid leg one is under the topic of that name.

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We went sailing again yesterday.

 

The boat has been sitting down at the domain for a couple of weeks, drying out for 18 hours a day. All that black slime dried and fell off. Saved us heaps of elbow grease. :wink:

 

Yesterday morning Himself went down at high tide to return her to the mooring, and us girls (my lovely daughter and I) met him and the young fella there about an hour later. The boys were ready, so when Lynx's crew turned up and told us the Kahawai were schooling outside, we were ready to rumble.

 

Or so I thought.

 

“Talie, can you get the chartplotter for us hun?”

“It's not here. Daddy took it off”

“Oh. OK. Well, grab me the handheld then.”

“It's not here either.”

“Bugger.”

 

A few minutes later, Bella is jumping over the back into the well, which is what she does when she is thirsty.

 

“Talie, can you get some water for Bella please?”

“There is none Mum, Daddy took it all off.”

LOL LOL LOL

 

“Well, just use the bought water this time hun.”

 

See what happens when the skipper doesn't check the boat out before you go out for a morning sail?

 

That aside, it was a perfect day for a sail. We hoisted the sails as soon as we were clear of the channel, and broad reached out the entrance in a nice 5-6 knot breeze, on a tide that had just started to ebb. The bar was flat – indeed, everything was flat (except the skippers puku). Just a light ripple on the surface to indicate there was just enough wind to hoist the gennie.

 

In record time the gennie was up, and we were enjoying some picture perfect autumn cruising, with the lure dragging along behind. I am not sure whether I should describe it as a huge, spaced out boil up – or dozens of small ones – but fish were boiling up all over the place out beyond the bar. Consequently, it wasn't long before the reel started to scream.

 

Seeing as I was helming, Himself took the reel. I eased off to take the wind out of the sails and slow us down. This allowed him to reel it in. A good Kahawai – I guestimated around 4lbs (it fed 7 people for dinner, and was my lunch today – a really good sized fish!).

 

Himself took the helm while I cleaned the fish, and then the boat, and put the lure back out again. Within minutes the reel started to scream again. After a bit of a fight, I reeled the fish in, and started to hoist it up out of the water when the line broke, and the fish slipped back into the water, lure still attached.

 

Bugger.

 

I prepped the lure I call the fluffy duck (a purple feather lure), and dropped it out the back.

We sailed out and back, then tacked up and down the beach slowly making our way into less deep water when the reel screamed again.

 

Himself had another go, and reeled a fish right up to the boat, and as he started to haul it aboard, it leaped off the hook. An Albacore this time – good size too.

 

Shame. (The shushimi was off the menu – just like that!).

 

We sailed on through the entrance – although the wind was up, and there were white crests everywhere, the bar remained flat, so we took it on – watching our depth carefully.

 

At 1.7m the centreboard hit the sandy bottom as Himself was labouring to raise it. Then we were back into deeper water, and the tidal ebb started to effect us. It was ripping out, so I stayed to the side of the worst, but had to cross over to get around to our channel. At one stage we were barely holding our own against the tide, inching forward with the motor revving higher than I usually have it (but well below full bore).

 

Slowly we made our way against the tide, inching past Anzac Bay, and around the point to Shelly Bay, with sails down.

 

Suddenly, the motor just revved out. I buttoned back, then eased it up, but we were not making way against the tide. Himself ran forward and prepped the anchor. I continued to try to get the motor to function correctly, but to no avail. Himself dropped the anchor, and we drifted back onto it, with full rode out as we were in just under 9m of water.

 

We gave thanks for the new Sarca (thanks - you know who you are :wink: ) as she held in the strong tidal flow, and we settled down to give the motor a wee break before trying again.

 

After 20 minutes, when the wind had dropped from peaking 24kts apparent to 10kts, we tried again. The motor seemed to be turning us, so Himself raised the anchor, only to find that we could not hold our own against the tide, so dropped the anchor again. The hard stuff was starting to look a bit too close for comfort, so we triangulated our position, and called Coastguard.

 

Stuck, 300m from our mooring, in a strong tidal flow, with engine failure, we felt like a couple of real twats. Pissed twats, as the outboard was just serviced (for twice what they said it would cost!) just three outings ago, just so this would not happen. But, at least we are members, so the boys from Coastguard came out and rafted us home to our mooring.

 

The motor is off to get sorted tomorrow – it is the perfect opportunity for us to upgrade the prop to a 4 blade version with higher thrust (without loosing our reversing ability). Himself wants to know why it happened, so we can ensure against it in the future.

 

A lesson learned – an awesome day out for a sail, an exciting end, with a great outcome.

 

Go the Coastguard Boys!!!!!!

 

And the best news ever? I got a job today! :D

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Spun three prop bushes my self I think it may be full reverse that does it. It's an ass of a system.

Still on the bright side you get really good at emergency anchor drops. :D

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