Crew: Geoff, Peter, Lorna.
Forecast: Variable 5 knots. Northerly 10 knots developing this morning, rising to 15 knots this afternoon. Sea slight. Fine. Low tide – 1340 hrs.
We cast off from Chaffers at 1100 hrs. Hoisted the No. 1 Light Genoa and Mainsail to sail across to Point Jenningham and then rigged up the spinnaker pole to sail goose-winged down Evans Bay arriving at the start box at 1141 hrs. Course was posted as #15: Start – Ward Is #12 – Finish. Start count-down time was the earlier time of 1155 hrs to allow averybody to get back before the Prada Cup race.
After a bit of experimenting we decided to start the race on a port tack from the west side of the start line. The start sequence lights worked well and and we had a pretty good start with Geoff on helm and Peter and Lorna on mainsheet and jib sheets. It took us a bit to get into the groove on the first tack as we headed over to Shark Bay and tacked up to Pt. Halswell doing around 5 kts. By the time we rounded the point and started crossing the harbour on a beam reach the wind was dropping and our speed went from 6 kts down to 3-4 kts but with Peter doing a great job on helm we were able to pass a few boats. Small bit of confusion rounding the Ward Island mark as we all realised the #12 bouy wasn’t there so we all took the next best option and rounded the club mooring buoy at 1304 hrs.
We slowly made our way back across the harbour and by the time we reached Pt Halswell we were pleased to see that Halo was now more than 10 minutes ahead of our contemporaries including Coriander, Tamerlane, Grenadier and Temptation. We had the Maxi Spinnaker rigged and ready to launch but instead of a tail wind we found we were on a beam reach and with the wind coming up we decided to play it safe and just sail with the main and genoa down the bay crossing the finish line at 1355 hrs.
Motor sailing our way back to Chaffers we spotted a Paper Tiger which had over-turned. The sailor was fine but he accepted our suggestion to call Race Control to get a support boat out to him. We later tied Halo up at our berth at 1433 hrs.
Back at the clubhouse we watched the Italians beat Team UK on both AC races and we also got our race results: The 38′ classic boat Marangi came first on handicap and Halo gained a respectable third place. An excellent day’s sailing!
RaceQS Replay: http://raceQs.com/event/1185282
(Thanks to Emma Peel for the photo she took of Halo as we sped past Temptation đ
Halo Log Book 