Crew: Geoff, Grant, Peter, Murray, Hugo.
Forecast: Becoming southeast 15 knots in the morning, then easing to 10 knots in the evening. LW 1406 hrs.
The forecast was looking good for a relaxing sail with mates around the harbour with the intention of visiting Seaview for coffee/lunch. We cast off from Chaffers Marina at 1050 hrs and with the No. 2 Jib hoisted we sailed on a beam reach across the harbour with Hugo on helm. Apart from the usual Kau Bay wind shadow we had a nice southerly breeze giving us up to 6.8 kts SOG.
As we neared Mākaro / Ward Island we spotted a pod of Orcas! A couple of them came in quite close to the boat but then swam off. Unlike dolphins, they showed no interest in playing with us. Probably more keen on catching some nice stingray for lunch.
Once we rounded Mākaro / Ward island we headed north on a run and hoisted the medium spinnaker. I tried a different way of hauling up the spinnaker halyard from the mast, which worked much better than our usual method of pulling from the cabin roof. The wind started dropping off and swinging round towards the west so we gybed the spinnaker and sailed nicely on a reach toward Seaview.
We discussed the fact that the spinnaker pole guy rope was very tight against the stanchions when reaching making it hard to control the pole. We had a collective ponder on whether the jockey pole would be useful in these situations. (The jockey pole pushes out the guy keeping it away from the stanchions and also provides a more outward angle to pull on when you want to bring the pole back). Murray suggested that the rings on ether side of the mast are probably for this purpose. I’ll clean up the old pole and we’ll try it out next time.
As we neared Seaview we hoisted the jib, then dropped the kite into the hatch. We then dropped the sails and motored into Seaview Marina at 1250 hrs. The Compass Coffee shop was open so we tied Halo up to their visitors jetty and enjoyed coffees, sandwiches and nice conversation in the sun. Caught up with Theo Muller and reminisced about the times Halo competed on the 24 Hour Endurance Race which he was race director for.
At 1345 hrs we backed out from the cafe jetty and after saluting Theo on his boat Freedom, we sailed back across the harbour with Peter on helm. After we passed Matiu/Somes Island we poled out the jib goose-winged. We berthed Halo at Chaffers at 1525 hrs.
A thoroughly pleasant day out sailing with good friends.
Halo Log Book 