The state of ocean racing

[Jon 360]

Nah much more fun getting over 100nm offshore and doing it as tanks don't have the what if factor and as Bardy said

 

_________________

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

[Guest]

Still no serious response to my question regarding the point of this whole thread.

 

Namely, tell us a real, tangible, serious example of cruising being negatively impacted by incidents in yacht racing,

 

Either historic examples.

 

Or evidence of future threats.

 

If not, just admit this whole thread is alarmist sensationalistic crap.

 

These things are both cumulative and take time.

For instance - women got the vote (unfortunately). It didn't happen overnight but it did happen.

Years after it happened the British celebrate the failed Dunkirk campaign. It took time, but celebrating a losing event - finally did happen.

[Guest]

Hi all

 

With interest I read the posts, quite interesting. Some of us here remember the days where good fleets headed Offshore. It wasn't that long ago.

 

Recently sailed to Noumea on Bonaparte, great race. Could it have been better, of course. Was it a Beneteau, yep. Did it fall apart, No. Did we have fun, Yep.

 

Back to the title, State of Ocean Racing...

 

We where interested to go in the cruising division, but our size/rating prevented this. That plus the cruising division was not given any proper start, you can start in this time period any where up the NZ coast. We still wanted to race in a fleet.

 

Personal opinion, but I think we had a respectable race, we finished with 30% of the finished fleet on Sunday. The welcome to the dock was brilliant, French bagettes and cheese, wine, the people, brilliant.

 

Thats where it ended. For the owners it was their first offshore.

 

Experience and destination was the goal. It was a disappointment that the prize giving had been and gone, all the evenings entertainment had ended. It was a strong feeling of now you've arrived too late, parties over can you please leave.

 

Compounded by the fact we where told very early on that there was no place in the marina. We need some small work done to the rig. This was unable to be done in the week after arrival because of the constant 40 knots of breeze in the marina.

 

Local rigger, George takes it on, but can't find a marina berth so give only one option to put Bonaparte on the hard. Great at least it's a solution. Plan was to leave the boat there for the repair, fly home for the week, then return for the delivery back to NZ. Email message received on arrival to NZ. Not allowed to work aloft while boat is on the hard. George can't make the repair.

 

Repair has to wait until the boat is back in the water, but they have no space to put us in the water. They wait until we fly back to Noumea before we can do anything. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

 

Anyway, our problem. I'm sure we will get it sorted. My point is that wrongly so we expected the services to be available. Simple things like a marina berth, even a mooring we would have taken. But there was no options available to us, now a simple problem becomes a headache. It is probably sounding funny, but what a pain in the ass.

 

So why would anybody bother investing serious cash in getting a boat any smaller then 50ft cruising or 40ft racer/cruising to arrive at a destination where they don't want you, all events are already completed, and any idea of holiday, relaxing break is destroyed by trying to solve simple issues that become complex by the lack of organisation.

 

I know for Bonaparte owner's they will never head to Noumea again, and maybe this experience has been enough to put them off offshore sailing. How disappointing.

[Bullrush 0]

From Ant.

Maybe this should go into the Noumea thread. Our story..

 

I guess thats just how ocean racing goes. Sometimes you get a good quick race, sometimes you get a long one. Hey for us, we expected to do it in 5 days, but we could nearly have missed the prize giving as well, not the organizers fault, we must blame the weather! The logistics in changing stuff behind the scenes, I cant begin to imagine...

 

We had a struggle getting out of NZ with the obviuos light conditions, but our new code zero helped us initially before we hit the northerlys getting winds of about 30knots sometimes a little more. Our tough little boat was banging and crashing but the rig held together this time, and there was no major damage excepting the owner losing his skills and destroying a kite.

 

The marina berth issue RAYC had been warning us about for months, so was always going to be a bit of an issue, I guess we all didnt appreciate how much, as they had to move some of their own club boats out to Port Moselle Marina...the marina juggling at the end was a little dissapointing for some of the boats, but personally we didnt experience any issues..

 

Our first experience at ocean racing was in our Farr 38 and we were often one of the smaller boats of the fleet for many years, nearly always near the back, and the races were always done on a budget (and still are). We always started with the main fleet, and never held up a prize giving that I can recall, although had been close on one occasion..just get out there and do it - dont let size matter!

 

Noumea was an awesome destination. We have done the race there on quite a few occasions. This year the organizers and sponsers need to be congratulated. The staff at the CNC Yacht Club were fantastic, providing each boat with 'Godparents' who greeted each NZ boat with French food and wine..Janine says there were volunteer race staff round the clock in the upstairs race office 24/7 who were only too happy to fill you in on the latest...there were heaps of updates on the trackers, twitter, facebook, Sail Noumea, so all the supporters at home seemed to be in touch with the race..

 

There was a Tri Nations race between The French, Aussie and Kiwi boats, unfortunaley all the Kiwi boats had taken such a hammering that Kia Kaha was the only boat to represent NZ, but they did us proud - good on you guys!

 

Our crew all stayed at Royal Tera (the old Club Med) which was a little way from the CNC, and altough the taxis were a cause of frustration at times, the Royal Tera resort, was not a shabby place to hang out.

Royal Tera had free buffett breakfast included, and full kitchens in aprtments. So there were a few room parties going on!

We were in company with the Akatea boys, M1, a whole heaps of the Aussie boats, and some other of the NZ boats....apparantly the Akatea guys put on a good Prawn and Beer night....

 

Couldnt find the famous (imfamous?) kava bar behind the End of the World Bar at Moselle Marina..anyone know what happened to it? (maybe this was a good thing......)

 

Cheese and Red Wine...well the girls and our boat God Parents, Bernard and Rosine and a bunch of Akatea and V5 guys met us at the dock at 12.50am (ish) with an abundance of this, cos it's cheap as chips in New Cal...however after our 6.5 days of brie cheese toasted sandwhiches...were were kind of looking for rum - thanks to Wayne from v5, for the jugs of coke...and then the rum started flowing...

 

All in all we have had a fantastic time in New Caledonia, and cant wait to go back..for those who are wondering about cost when out and about.... was good..similar to Auckland prices...

 

We are back again for 22 days next week for some family crusing to the Isle de Pines with another Kiwi boat and then again for the Groupama Around New Caledonia Race starting September 9th...

[Guest]

From Ant.

Maybe this should go into the Noumea thread. Our story..

 

I guess thats just how ocean racing goes. Sometimes you get a good quick race, sometimes you get a long one. Hey for us, we expected to do it in 5 days, but we could nearly have missed the prize giving as well, not the organizers fault, we must blame the weather! The logistics in changing stuff behind the scenes, I cant begin to imagine...

 

Nice reply, amazing what a difference a day makes.

 

It's difficult to schedule events with such a variety of possibilities, but the formula should be looked at on this one. Two years ago we got to noumea quickly and the rest of the fleet had a hard race, just ask BooBoo. But the prize giving and events organised pretty much got cancelled thru lack of finished boats.

 

So in 4 years the formula hasn't worked. It worked for Bullrush obviously, but not for 30% of the finishers. There's a good chance it won't work again in 2 years.

 

Imagine the dissappointment if they did this for the Sydney to Hobart, or the Fastnet.

 

It's hard to find figures, but Sydney to Hobart, 630nm prizegiving 7 days. Fastnet, 608nm prizegiving 6 days, noumea 980nm prizegiving 7 days.

 

If u only cater for the fast race boats, it will make it difficult for the small/slower boats to compete. Proof is the fact there was no small/slower boats racing.

 

If you look after the small guy, the big guys will come. If you look after the big guy, no one else plays.

 

Noumea, agreed great place as u point out.

 

We have an email from CNC saying they could sort us out a berth for 3 months, and it would be organised when we arrived. Oops. No berth, we changed our plans accordingly, but now need some place to put the boat in the water so we can repair and leave. Dunno maybe we should have allowed for this.

[Brien 22]

From Ant.

Maybe this should go into the Noumea thread. Our story..

 

 

Cheese and Red Wine...well the girls and our boat God Parents, Bernard and Rosine and a bunch of Akatea and V5 guys met us at the dock at 12.50am (ish) with an abundance of this, cos it's cheap as chips in New Cal...

 

All in all we have had a fantastic time in New Caledonia, and cant wait to go back..for those who are wondering about cost when out and about.... was good..similar to Auckland prices...

 

Bernard and Rosine have been doing this every year for a very long time.

 

They met "Insha alla" in 1984 at end of Whangarei / Noumea.

Say hi from Brien and Mike.

 

Cheers

brien

[Bullrush 0]

Brien, they met my dad Murray, on the Cav 32 Petronella same race, I thought it was 85.... Long history between Bernard, Rosine and them looking after the kiwi offshore sailors...now they are looking after us!

 

Janine

[Guest]

From Ant.

Maybe this should go into the Noumea thread. Our story..

 

 

Cheese and Red Wine...well the girls and our boat God Parents, Bernard and Rosine and a bunch of Akatea and V5 guys met us at the dock at 12.50am (ish) with an abundance of this, cos it's cheap as chips in New Cal...

 

All in all we have had a fantastic time in New Caledonia, and cant wait to go back..for those who are wondering about cost when out and about.... was good..similar to Auckland prices...

 

Bernard and Rosine have been doing this every year for a very long time.

 

They met "Insha alla" in 1984 at end of Whangarei / Noumea.

Say hi from Brien and Mike.

 

Cheers

brien

 

pretty sure Brien you met us in whangerei one year on the Panui and after a few from the cruzan bottle...........

[Brien 22]

Cheers

brien

 

pretty sure Brien you met us in whangerei one year on the Panui and after a few from the cruzan bottle...........

 

 

Oh Dear, I think that was the year I met "everybody" at Tuts. I was only invited north, once, on Panui.

[Murky 1]

A post-script to the return trip for those that hadn't heard. Super-lucky to have been within helicopter range when it happened and not something that most of us would have foreseen. Hope the recovery continues to go well

 

http://www.northernadvocate.co.nz/news/ ... g/1434364/

[splashprincess 16]

Wow, glad to hear that rescue went well for Gary. We met him when he was Physical Favours crew for RNI 2011, great guy and great boat so hears hoping for a speedy recovery!