RPNYC Island Bay Race 18 November 2023

Crew: Geoff, Murray, Martin, Ole, Trey.

Forecast: Southerly 10 knots in the morning, easing to variable 5 knots in the evening. HW 0933 hrs, LW 1609 hrs.

Lovely day for sailing but the conditions weren’t looking too promising for the Island Bay race with light breezes varying between zero and 3 kts. As we were preparing the boat the call came through from Port Nick race control on ch. 62 that the AP over 1 was flying, signifying a one hour delay on start times. We all traipsed off to Raglan Rock for coffees and wandered round to the Te Papa breastworks to socialise with other Evans Bay boats tied up at the visitors wharf.

Then a second announcement came through that there would be a further delay and the course would be shortened to a harbour course: Start – Mark 10 (p) Falcon Shaols – Mark 5 (p) Somes – Finish. Halo‘s start time would now be 1230 hrs, 5 minutes after Coriander and 5 minutes in front of Grenadier.

We cast off from Chaffers at 1100 hrs with our no. 1 Genoa LT hoisted and did some practice sailing around the harbour looking for whatever wind we could find. We also did a rehearsal spinnaker hoist.

Finally our time came and we got ourselves into position behind the start line.

Amazingingly at about one minute before our start, the wind suddenly increased from nothing to about 7 kts SW. We couldn’t believe our good luck after watching Coriander who had started 5 minutes before us struggling to get moving.

Off we went, making slow but steady progress towards Pt Jerningham with Martin on helm, Ole on bow, Murray on mainsheet, Trey and Geoff on sail trim.

As we crossed the top of Evans Bay the southerly came up to about 12 kts and we sailed nicely on a beam reach at around 6 kts. We were now ahead of Coriander. We kept an eye on the only other boat in front of us, Lizzie, to see how they handled the imminent wind shadow of the Mt Crawford peninsula.

After rounding Pt Halswell we did have a short loss of wind but soon were able to pick up the wind again and make the layline close hauled towards Falcon Shoals light.

Mel Zytecka was on the support boat taking some nice photos.

We rounded the Falcon Shoals light at 1315 hrs and after a quick check of the wind did a gybe before bowman Ole hoisted our maxi spinnaker. By now the wind was a nice 11-15 kts and we got up to around 6.5 kts of SOG on the run towards Somes Island. Champagne sailing!

At about half a mile from the mark we hoisted the genoa. Then Ole and I dropped the kite down the hatch and stowed the spinnaker pole in plenty of time before rounding the mark at 1345 hrs.

We trimmed the sheets for a close hauled beat towards the finish and anxiously watched some of the faster boats closing the gap behind us. Could we maintain our lead?

As we neared Lambton Harbour we started getting knocked a bit and were wondering if we would need to do a tack to get past the container terminal. With Martin doing a great job on helm we got a lift at the last minute and we were able to sail around the light and straight down to cross the finish with a blast of the clubhouse horn at 1423 hrs.

Halo, first on line!