Crew: Peter, Emma, Murray, Jamie, Margot, Geoff.
Forecast: Southerly 10-12 kts.
It was looking like a perfect day to try out the brand new headsail. Our old no. 1 heavy genoa was 40 years old and falling apart. Brett from Linton Sails made us a lovely new sail made of FLEX Polyester Mylar cloth.
When debating whether to go for Mylar or Dacron, Brett commented: “One way of describing the difference is that sails have a life and also a career. The Dacron has a long life, as demonstrated by your existing genoas. Mylar has a much more fulfilling career.” I was sold…
The crew met me at Chaffers Marina at 11 am. We rigged up the boat and cast off at 1115 hrs to give us time to do some practice with the new sail. Quite a bit different to the old one and it took some getting used to, experimenting with sheet tensions and jib car positions for different sailing angles.
Race Control announced the course over VHF: Start – Mark 10 Falcon Shoal (s) – Mark 7 Barrett Reef Buoy (p) – Mark 6 Front Leading Light (p) – Finish, with countdown starting at 1155 hrs. We called in and confirmed our intention to race with 6 POB.
14 boats were entered in the race.
We practised our approach to the start and timed it pretty well, crossing the line in the middle of the fleet next to Lady Mink. We hoisted our medium spinnaker for the reach in light airs across to Pt Halswell.
We got a nice burst of speed as we crossed the top of Evans Bay.
We hoisted our big genoa and dropped the kite as we neared Pt. Halswell and managed to keep some momentum going to get through the wind shadow of Kau Bay. We passed a couple of boats in the process.
We soon got back into the wind again and our boat speed picked up nicely as the genoa showed us what she could do after some more sail trim adjustments .
As we tacked our way towards Wellington Heads the southerly swell combined with 15 kts of wind against the outgoing tide made for some exciting big waves crashing over us.
We rounded Barret Reef Buoy at 1330 hrs and instantly enjoyed the relative calm of a tail wind and following seas. Lady Mink ahead of us quickly hoisted their kite and soon after, we got our medium spinnaker back up.
Time for some snacks and to take a photo of my super crew.
We had a great run down past Falcon Shoal with our boat speed touching 9 kts a couple of times as we surfed the waves.
We needed to gybe to head over towards Kau Point and decided to drop the kite and sail on an easy broad reach with the big genoa propelling us along at around 6.5 kts.
After drifting past the Kau Bay wind shadow we sailed into the shifty winds of Lambton Harbour.
We crossed the finish line at 1452 hrs.
We found out at the prizegiving that we came 3rd on club handicap and 2nd on PHRF handicap. Well done Team Halo and a great result using our new genoa.
Halo Log Book 