Crew: Geoff, Murray, John, Ildomar.
Forecast: Northerly 10 kts according to the Metservice with Predictwind saying 5 kts.
A lovely evening for a sail! We didn’t enter Halo in the full four-day RPNYC regatta program but were happy to participate in their pre-regatta invitation race. After preparing the boat Murray and I wandered over to the Port Nic clubhouse for the briefing. As the breeze was dropping, the race officer Nick Vause didn’t announce a course – wanting to keep his options open until just before the race start.
Back to the boat. John was rigging the no. 1 light genoa when he noticed it was missing one of the brass hanks on the luff. Bugger. We packed it up and got out the no. 1 heavy genoa. Good to give it an airing anyway as it hasn’t been used for a while.
We cast off at 1730 hrs with Murray on helm, John and Geoff on sail trim with newbie Ildomar assisting. The course was announced on ch. 62 as Start – mark #25 Shoal Pile – mark #4 Ngauranga – mark #16 Oriental Bay – Finish. We called in to confirm Halo was racing with 4 POB. After hoisting the sails we did a quick practise sail. Fairly busy shipping in the harbour with the Kaitiaki and Connemara docking and the big cruise ship Carnival Splendor departing.
We had a bit of a slow start at 1800 hrs as the wind dropped down to under 5 kts but we eventually got moving following the fleet of nine yachts heading towards Point Jerningham.
As we neared at the White Lady we noticed Grenadier who was just ahead of us, had already hoisted their spinnaker as they rounded the mark. Impressive!
Once I had the spinnaker pole set up Ildomar quickly hoisted our kite and we then dropped the genoa. Wind was down to about 3-4 kts so we were not getting much speed as we sailed on the run dead downwind. We kept the gybe preventer on tight.
Friends Vicki and Nick cheered us on from the shore. Thanks for the photo!
As we headed down Evans Bay the Race Control announced on Ch. 62 that the course was shortened. We would now go straight back to the finish after rounding Shoal Pile.
We hoisted the genoa and dropped the spinnaker just in time to round the mark at 1838 hrs. Nice to cool off with a bit of headwind as we tacked back up the bay. The breeze came up to 10 kts and Murray did a great job on helm getting us back to Pt Jerningham in just three tacks.
It was then a relaxing beam reach sailing back to Lambton Harbour crossing the finish line at 1916 hrs.
Back at the clubhouse results were announced. We came fourth on handicap. Great work team Halo!
Halo Log Book 