EBYMBC Spring Series 28 October 2023

Crew: Geoff, Grant, Trey.

Forecast: Variable 5 knots. Fine. LW: 10:44 am HW: 17:04 pm.

Another great day for sailing in Wellington. The course was announced as on-water start at Pania through to Somes west (5P) and return. 7.5Nm course length.

Just the three of us on Halo: Grant on helm with me and Trey on everything else. We hoisted the light no. 1 genoa and rigged the maxi spinnaker.

The start gave us some anxious moments when the big Jesse James, with their pink gennaker flying, forced us super close to the committee boat. No damage done as they glided ahead of us but as the windward boat they should have given us room.

Trey quickly hoisted our spinnaker and we made fairly good speed up Evans Bay in the very light southerly, keeping Grenadier about 50 mts behind us.

As we sailed past Pt Halswell the breeze backed towards the east which meant we were now reaching with the spinnaker. Our speed dropped off as Incantare and Grenadier easily sailed past us. We did consider dropping the kite but we could see Grenadier sailing well with theirs so decided to press on. The incoming tide possibly wasn’t helping. We steered straight towards the mark.

As we neared Somes mark 5 we hoisted the genoa and then dropped the spinnaker in good time before gybing round the mark.

We were pretty pleased with our beat back to Evans Bay. The wind direction veered back towards the south as we neared Evans Bay but we pressed on to tack just off Pt Jerningham. Then after one more tack we crossed the finish line near Kio Bay.