Crew: Geoff, Murray, Peter, Anastasia, John.
Forecast: Variable 5 knots. Northerly 10 knots developing in the afternoon. HW 1611 hrs.
At our berth at Chaffers I did some training with John who was new to Halo and then we cast off at around 1100 hrs doing some practice sailing with the light genoa no. 1 and full mainsail on our way round to Evans Bay to collect Murray.
The light northerly breeze turned into a light southerly by the time we arrived in front of the club house. There were already two boats, Tamerlane and Coriander, tied up at the wharf so we opted to tie up to the poles next to the slipway.
The course was announced as: On-water start from Pania, Mark 5 (p) west of somes – Mark 11 (p) Korokoro – Finish. We rigged up our maxi spinnaker in preparation for a down-wind start with Peter on helm, Murray on mainsheet, Anastacia on bow, John and me on sail trim.
Evans Bay Start
Just before the 1255 hrs start sequence the breeze turned back to northerly. We decided to aim for the boat end of the start line on starboard tack. A great plan except everybody else obviously had the same idea.
As we approached the start line it eventually was obvious we weren’t going to have room and had no choice but to tack away and do a 360 degree turn before eventually crossing the line almost two minutes late. We weren’t the only ones caught out. Tamerlane, Incantare and Slingshot also had to do pirouettes before the start.
We beat our way up Evans Bay tacking off NIWA close to the fishermen before tacking over to north of Shelly Bay. After one more tack we were able to lay the line to the Somes mark. Grenadier magically was able to point very high and get a good lead on us.
Beat to Somes
Once we sailed past Pt Halswell we eased the sails somewhat to point directly to the mark with John doing a great job trimming the genoa all the way.
About half way across the harbour we got into a bit of a wind hole and Tamerlane came up close on our windward side to sail past us.
Up until now we had kept ahead of Jesse James but now they started cruising up on our windward side. They came very close and as they passed us their massive mainsail came within millimeters of touching our spreader. I was all set to get out the red flag before they sailed away with no damage done.
Close Hauled to Korokoro
We rounded the Somes mark at 1352 hrs and tightened the sheets to sail close hauled up to the Korokoro mark. By now the wind had increased with white caps appearing on the surface.
Anastacia had the spinnaker all rigged anticipating a nice run down the harbour to the finish.
Beam Reach to Finish
As we neared the mark we saw that none of the boats ahead were flying their kites. That’s a shame. Anastacia was looking forward to her first spinnaker hoist.
Anyway it turned out to be a nice beam reach all the way down the harbour at about 6 kts. We crossed the finish line at 1448 hrs.
RaceQs Replay: http://raceQs.com/event/1653179
And Back Home
We sailed back to Chaffers while enjoying delicious slices of homemade pizza en route. Thank you Graciela!
We docked Halo back in her berth at 1536 hrs. A wonderful day’s sailing in perfect conditions!
Halo Log Book 