Shiralee Cup Race 17 Feb 2024 – Win for Halo!

Crew: Geoff, Paul, John, Phil.

Forecast: Northerly 15 kts rising to 20 kts.

Our first race on Halo since the excitement of the Nelson Regatta.

John and I cast off from Chaffers at 1100 hrs and hoisted the small no. 3 jib together with one reef in the mainsail. We sailed round to Evans Bay with John getting in some good practice on helm.

Paul was there to meet us at Evans Bay wharf and helped us with the mooring lines. We ate our sandwiches at the clubhouse and got the course: Start – Mark #18 Days Bay – Mark #11 Korokoro – Finish. Vice Commodore Phil wasn’t sailing on Grenadier due to lack of crew so he accepted our offer to join the Halo crew for the day.

We cast off at 1240 hrs for a couple of practice tacks before the five minute countdown at 1255 hrs. Crew positions: Paul on mainsheet, John on sail trim, Geoff on helm, Phil on sail trim plus providing valuable assistance with tactics and strategy.

Leg 1 – Start to Pt Halswell

We started the race on port tack at the clubhouse end of the line. A good start a few seconds ahead of the others. We tacked our way up Evans Bay with the northerly varying between 16 and 25 kts. We were happy with our conservative sail choices.

After turning south of Shark Bay we were now on starboard tack and noticed the big Jesse James heading straight for us. We had right of way but had they seen us? They didn’t give way so we had to dip below them while shouting “protest”. The soon obliged by taking a 360 degrees turn behind us.

After two more tacks we felt we were on a correct layline to clear Pt Halswell but as we neared the headland the wind dropped from 20 to 12 kts veering to NE. We were getting knocked. The faster boat, Incantare was ahead of us but suffering the same fate. They had tacked but appeared to be then sailing way off course. At Phil’s suggestion we continued on, tacking just before we hit the rocks. A second tack soon after enabled us to easily clear Pt Halswell. We were now a good 200 mts ahead of Incantare. Good call Phil!

Leg 2 – Pt Halswell to Days Bay

We then settled into a long beat across the harbour towards Day’s Bay. I handed over the tiller to Phil and went below to set the waypoint on the OpenCPN . On coming back up on deck I saw two big ferries leaving their docks and coming up behind us! I checked their AIS tracks on the plotter. As long as the Kaiarahi and Strait Feronia followed the normal shipping routes we would clear their tracks comfortably. We continued on.

We later looked back and saw that Incantare appeared to have decided to wait and let the ferries pass. By the time they resumed the course we were about a mile ahead of them! ‘Schadenfreude’!

We were making good speed across the harbour but our only problem was locating mark #18. We eventually realised the waypoint location on the chartplotter was wrong and we had to bear away about 20 degrees once we spotted it in the distance.

Leg 3 – Days Bay to Korokoro

We rounded Mark #11 at 1408 hrs using Phil’s ‘Jenny Craig’ method (go in fat, come out thin) and then immediately tacked toward the top of Somes Island. Still no sign of the other boats catching up with us.

After a short dog’s leg to avoid the hidden rocks north of Mokopuna Island we arrived at Mark #18.

Leg 4 – Korokoro to Finish

We rounded the mark at 1446 hrs for the downwind run back to Evans Bay. We had prepared the medium spinnaker bag on the pulpit but with the still very gusty wind we made a team decision not to fly it.

We shook out the reef in the main and settled into a comfortable broad reach sailing at up to our hull speed of 7.5 kts with wind occasionally gusting up to 30 kts.

Before entering Evans Bay, with the wind now dead astern, we poled out the jib with Paul taking over helm for the run down the bay.

We were still way ahead of Jesse James and Incantare who were battling it out behind us so we dropped the jib and with John on helm we triumphantly crossed the finish line at 1534 hrs – first on line. Great work Team Halo!