Crew: Geoff, Murray, Tunch, John.
Forecast: Variable 5 knots. Northerly 10 knots developing in the afternoon. Wellington high tide at 16:42.
The Island Bay race was to be a staggered start with Halo‘s time set for 1035 hrs. We met up at Chaffers Marina and started preparing the boat. Due to the 1-2 kts of wind, Race Control announced on ch. 62 that AP over 1 was flying. There would be one hour hour delay to the start time. We all wandered down to Raglan Roast for coffees and waited for the elusive breeze. Windy Wellington indeed!
Amanda on Race Control comms eventually announced a “shortened” course: Start – 11s – 6s – 7s – 6p – 10s – 15p – Finish. We called in our intention to race with 4 POB and cast off at 1100 hrs. We rigged the no. 1 light genoa and full main ready for our 1135 start.
There was still only about 2 kts of breeze and lots of dead calm patches visible in the harbour. Wakarere, the heavy Crocker 35, started 15 minutes before us and were struggling to get moving. We saw some breeze coming off the container terminal so we headed across there after crossing the start line. Not sure if it was the best move. Grenadier who started 5 minutes after us seemed to have better luck and were soon crossing ahead of us.
As we came away from Aotea Quay the breeze strengthened slightly and we were getting a good lift until it suddenly died again while the Interislander ferry Kaiarahi steamed out of the harbour in front of us.
We slowly inched our way towards the Korokoro mark doing about 2 kts SOG. At least we were pointing the the right direction – most of the time. Tunch prepared some scrumptious tuna salad baguette rolls for our lunch. We heard Wakarere retire from the race.
Most of the faster Port Nic boats as well as Grenadier and Incantare caught up with us shortly before we got to the mark which we finally rounded at 1351 hrs – two hours and 20 minutes after our start!
Race Control then announced that the course was shortened and would now finish at a line between Caniwi and Barrett Reef Buoy.
The next waypoint was the Front Lead lighthouse, 4.5 miles away. We were a bit delayed in hoisting our maxi spinnaker (should have prepared it before we rounded the mark). The NE wind was coming up nicely to 7 kts. Murray took a turn on helm while John handled the spinnaker sheet. We had to closely monitor the wind as it veered back and forth changing from dead downwind to reaching.
Gucci overtook us as we sailed past the Front Lead mark at 1450 hrs. We then made a slight right turn to continue for the run down to the finish line at Barrett Reef buoy.
Grenadier, ahead of us, sailed over towards the east coast presumably to avoid the worst of the incoming tide while Pork Chop gybed and sailed across in front of us into Chaffers Passage.
We continued on the dead downwind course straight for the the Barrett Reef buoy and crossed the finish line at 1521 hrs.
The sun came out, and we enjoyed a relaxing sail back to Chaffers docking at 1646 hrs.
A wonderful day’s sailing.
Race Qs Replay – http://raceQs.com/event/1680870
After packing up sails etc we went over to the Port Nic clubhouse for prize giving. Halo came 8th on handicap out of the 16 boats which completed the race.
Halo Log Book 