24 Hour Endurance Race 9-10 March 2024

Crew: Geoff, John, Ildomar, Tunch, Emma, (Murray had to pull out at the last minute).

Forecast: Variable 5 kts in the morning, southerly 20 kts developing in the afternoon. Turning northerly 10 kts Sunday morning rising to 25 kts in the afternoon.

Anastasia – We have dedicated this event to the memory of our dear friend and regular Halo crew member Anastasia who shockingly passed away unexpectedly last week. She was a happy and lovely woman and an enthusiastic sailer. She will be greatly missed. RIP.

Saturday

The big day has arrived. Yesterday Tunch and I sailed Halo across the harbour to our temporary berth at Seaview Marina. At 0900 hrs Saturday we met up at the Lowry Bay Yacht Club for the race briefing presented by Race Director Brent Porter and Race Officer Bob Lowell.

The first leg of the 24 Hour Race was to start at 11 am and take us out of Wellington Harbour to Fitzroy Bay. This section would be a combined race with boats competing in the regular LBYC Fitzroy Bay Race. The second leg would be a long harbour course followed by as many of shorter circuits within the harbour as we can complete before 11 am Sunday.

We collected our race polo shirts, activated our Predictwind tracker and made our way to Halo’s berth. After checking life jackets and safety gear, attaching our yellow and purple class ribbons, and having one last look at the weather forecast, we cast off at 1010 hrs.

Leg 1 – Fitzroy Bay Combined Race

We cruised around the start area and checked out the location of the big yellow start mark and the committee boat. In spite of the 5 kts SW light breeze we decided to hoist the smaller no. 2 jib in the expectation of the strong southerly that was forecast. Initial crew positions were John and Emma on sail trim, Tunch on mainsheet, Ildomar on bow and me on helm.

We got away to good start across the line on starboard tack, windward of the fleet, next to the committee boat. While most of the yachts continued west towards Pt Howard we decided to follow Sika II, a Farr 9.2, onto port tack to keep clear air doing about 3-4 kts SOG towards Matiu/Somes.

From then on it was a case of trying to chase the pockets of breeze up the harbour. By about 1140 hrs we were still up with the front boats just behind High Society, a Davidson 37, as the wind backed to a 4 kts westerly.

At 1200 hrs, as we neared Ward Island the wind finally arrived. A good 17 kts SW, well suited to our no. 2 jib. giving us around 5.5 kts boat speed. The tide was coming in so we kept to the east side of the harbour and tacked close to the coast off Eastbourne beach.

By now the wind was up to a cooler 20 kts SSW so it was time to don jackets and put a reef in the main. Halo was sailing well at 6 kts with good sail balance and pointing well. We passed High Society who appeared to be getting knocked as they sailed over toward Worser Bay. AmMer, Geoff Thorn’s Bavaria 38, was still behind us. Wow, we’re doing well!

We spotted the Cook Strait ferry Aratere entering the harbour and made sure we kept clear of her projected course. We passed Pencarrow Head with the wind backing to SSE as we entered Fitzroy Bay. Emma took a turn on helm.

We rounded Y-Not, the committee boat at 1350 hrs, just ahead of Am-Mer and about 5 mins ahead of High Society. With the wind now 17-25 kts SSE dead astern, we gybed the main, shook out the reef, poled out the jib and hoisted the no. 1 genoa as a second headsail.

With all that sail work I think we forgot to “keep our eyes out of the boat” and found we had sailed too far west. Am Mer soon passed us with their spinnaker flying. As we neared Barrett Reef we dropped the genoa and gybed the main. By now High Society, also with their kite up, had passed us.

We decided against hoisting our spinnaker. With the dual headsails we were doing a good 7.5 kts and keeping up with the fleet. Some of the other boats were flying kites and we saw two go into broach with wind gusts nearing 30 kts.

We settled in for the long run back to Seaview and were entertained by a pod of dolphins swimming along with us.

As we sailed back towards Seaview the Race Officer announced on ch. 77 the decision to drop the long harbour course. The next leg would now be the shorter harbour course. After rounding the Hutt River mark we turned back to cross the the Start/Finish line at 1531 hrs.

As we continued on to the next leg it was announced over the VHF the results of the first leg. Halo came second on on adjusted time for the Fitzroy LBYC Combined Race!

Race Qs Replay – Leg 1: http://raceQs.com/event/1678639

Laps 2-10

Well that was a pretty long race in itself, 4.5 hours, but no rest for us! We continued straight back towards Ward Island in our first leg of the shorter harbour course. The southerly had eased off a bit to 15-20 kts, still good for our no. 2 jib with one reef in the main. Tunch took over on helm.

After rounding Ward Island I got a bit confused and set the next mark on the chartplotter for Ngauranga. We realised eventually it should have been Horokiwi #11. Whoops! From there we headed for Petone Mark #19 and then back to The Start/Finish mark. This would be the same course now for the rest of the race. Each time we rounded the start/finish mark we had to call race control on ch. 77 to confirm as well as recording the details in our log sheets.

We used a 4-on-2-off watch system which worked well with each crew member theoretically getting 8 hours sleep over the 24 hour duration of the race.

At 1800 hrs all boats in the race were called one by one for the VHF radio sked to confirm “all’s well”. Then it was time for dinner! Tunch and Emma who were off watch, prepared our dinner. Beef Bourguignon pre-cooked by Graciela. Delicious!

The sun started setting over Wellington and we turned on our navigation lights and sailed into the evening. The wind eased off some more and John took over helm. We resisted the temptation to use the spinnaker on each Ward Island to Horokiwi downwind run, conservatively staying with the dual headsails.

At about 0200 hrs I was off watch sleeping in the vee berth when suddenly I woke up realising I couldn’t hear the water gurgling past the hull any more. What’s happened? Why have we stopped? I went on deck to find that we were becalmed! Tunch was on helm and reported that Halo was just drifting and had already done a 360 degree drift while attempting to round the Ward Island mark.

We swapped the no. 2 jib for the big no. 1 genoa as we waited for the wind to turn to northerly in accordance with the forecast. It slowly started to fill in and we were back on track towards Horokiwi. There was no moon tonight but we found the harbour was well lit up from the city lights reflecting off the cloud cover.

By now we had lost sight of the other boats most of the time. We were only alerted to their presence when each boat called race control when rounding the start/finish mark. Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness – Longfellow 1874.

It was getting pretty cold now and we fortified ourselves with hot teas, coffees and chocolate and enjoyed the leisurely sailing. Eventually we saw a glow in the sky above announcing the imminent arrival of daybreak.

The sky continued to clear and we could finally make out some of the other boats in the race as we slowly made our way round the course.

Time for a yummy breakfast and more coffees with a nice 7-10 kts breeze by now as we continued our way round the course and joined the dawn radio sked with race control.

Some pretty tired crew on Halo!

We completed our last lap (#10) just before the 1100 hrs horn went off sounding the race completion. The race was over!

Each boat then had to call race control to advise our latitude and longitude coordinates as well as our distance from the nearest boat. Sliver, the Davidson 37 which took line honours, was 0.89 Nm ahead of us. We dropped the sails and motored back to our berth in Seaview Marina and handed in our log sheet to Lyn at race control.

Results were announced at the prize giving. We came second on handicap and won a lovely trophy cup. Well done LBYC for hosting another thoroughly enjoyable 24 Hour Endurance Race.