RPNYC Winter Series 7 July 2024 – Win for Halo!

Crew: Geoff, Murray, John, Jamie, Juliette.

Forecast: N 10 this morning changing S 15 kts late afternoon.

A glorious winter’s day for sailing!

After prepping the boat we cast off at 1116 hrs and did some practice tacks with our repaired heavy no. 1 genoa and full main. The northerly was about 10 kts but up to 15 kts at times. We sailed past the Port Nic clubhouse to see today’s course number. Number 44: SR … 25P… 11S … 10S … FR. Crew positions were: John and Jamie on sail trim, Juliette on bow, Murray on mainsheet and me on helm. We did a practice approach to the start line. Almost two minutes from the east edge of Glasgow wharf.

A good sized fleet of 16 boats started jostling for position. We were too far away from the clubhouse to see the flags but heard on VHF ch. 62 what we presumed was the lead-in to the five minute countdown and set our race timer. Our rehearsed timing to the start went perfectly with Juliette on bow calling the line, except we couldn’t understand why quite a few boats were crossing the start ahead of us. No word from Race Control so we continued on.

(I found out later that the radio in the start box was having technical issues with the microphone cutting out. As it was quite rightly pointed out, the start sequence flags are what really matters. A good lesson to learn. We may need to use our binoculars next time).

We sailed on a beam reach across Lambton Harbour doing about 5 kts SOG. By the time we reached Pt. Jerningham the fleet has split into two groups. We were in the second group but doing well passing a couple of boats.

Once we had rounded the point John hoisted the maxi spinnaker and with Murray ably handling the helm we had a fun duel with White Cavalier and Shikari down Evans Bay. We rounded the Shoal Pile mark at 1228 hrs close on the heels of them.

We then had a long beat up the harbour to Korokoro. Our first tack was just south of Kio Bay and then across to a headland just north of Shelly Bay.

Our anemometer at the top of the mast has been recently re-mounted and is now providing accurate wind data to our big display on the mast. It was certainly useful to have this always visible to the helmsman and we found that about 30 degrees apparent angle to the wind seemed to be optimum for sailing close hauled in these conditions.

After two more tacks we neared the Korokoro mark and watched the leading boats coming towards us hoisting their kites.

We rounded the mark at 1341 hrs just behind Wiseguy and Shikari. We now had a good lead on White Cavalier. We hoisted our maxi spinnaker again for the long run down to Falcon Shoals light. No sign of the forecasted southerly wind change.

White Cavalier beating to the mark behind us

We rounded the Falcon Shoals at 1428 hrs with the kite nicely stowed away and genoa hoisted. Good work team.

We managed to pass Kau Point without having to tack (just). The two boats ahead of us, Wiseguy and Shikari, needed to tack to clear the point.

We continued directly to Pt Halswell and then eased the sails for the reach back to cross the finish line at 1516 hrs. After dropping our sails we motored round to watch the trailing boats finish the race.

After docking Halo back at Chaffers and packing up the boat we went wandered over to the Port Nick clubhouse. The prize giving announcement was made. Halo first on handicap and we were presented with a six-pack of beers from the sponsor, Waitoa. Well done Team Halo!!