Crew: Geoff, Grant, Murray, Juliet, Mark.
Forecast: Today: Variable 5 knots but southerly 10 knots about the south coast. Becoming variable 5 knots everywhere this evening. Sea slight. Poor visibility in morning drizzle, clearing then fine.
Very light conditions in the inner harbour today. Geoff, Mark and Kay went out for a training sail earlier in the afternoon and found that there was a southerly breeze up to 10 Kts in Evans Bay. The race course was confirmed by RPNYC race control as Start – Shoal Pile – Finish. Just before the 1800 hrs start, race control announced a 15 min delay due to the Bluebridge ferry docking.
At 1815 hrs the race started and we all sailed slowly towards Pt. Jerningham in a very light breeze initially coming from the north. Grant was on helm, Murray on Mainsheet, Geoff and Mark on Genoa trimming and Juliet on bow.
After one tack we eventually picked up the southerly wind as we neared the point and then continued on one long tack curving round as we following the changing wind direction to the east of Evans Bay. We worked hard trying to optimise genoa and mainsail trim as the wind conditions changed.
After four tacks we rounded Shoal Pile and found we had gained a good distance ahead of our contemporaries including Sasquatch, Grenadier and Temptation.
We had the Maxi Spinnaker ready to hoist on the downwind run but we noticed that the boats in front of us were not flying their kites. Geoff radioed Race Control who clarified that spinnakers were not permitted on this race as the green light had not been displayed. We goose-winged our Genoa with the pole instead.
As we made our way back towards the finish line we enjoyed beautiful views of the sun setting over Wellington as the wind eventually died out. One by one all the boats retired from the race when it became obvious they would not meet the 2100 hrs cut-off time across the finish line.
RaceQS Action Replay: http://raceQs.com/event/1189239
Shows Halo tracking against Blue Steel sail nbr 9292, a Welbourne 27 ‘Sports Boat’ with handicap of 0.736 (visible in the first photo above – thanks Kaye).
Halo Log Book 