Crew: Murray, Jorge, Rosina, Geoff.
Forecast: Southerly 10 kts rising 15 kts for a time late morning and afternoon.
After a safety briefing for our new crew member, Rosina, we cast off from Chaffers and motored round to Evans Bay to tie up at the wharf. Jorge then joined us and we also did a briefing for him. It was his first time on Halo although he has crewed with Bill on Tamerlane before.
Race Control announced the course: Start – Mark 11 Korokoro, Mark 18 Days Bay – Finish. We signed on with 4 POB and cast off with the no. 2 jib, full main, and medium spinnaker at the ready.
We timed our start well but Usurper and Upcycled quickly passed us with spinnakers flying. We preferred to hoist the kite after we had cleared the 420 dinghy national champs racing in Evans Bay.
Jorge on bow then hoisted the kite and we chased Expresso up the bay.
It was a long run up the harbour in about 18 kts of southerly, heading towards Korokoro with Murray’s steady hand on the helm.
About a mile off the mark we eventually caught up with Expresso who were sailing with their jib goose-winged.
As we neared the mark we discussed whether we should go above or below Somes Island to get to Days Bay. I noticed Usurper going below and decided to follow them. We were a bit late to hoist our jib and drop the kite.
It took us a while to get the sails correctly trimmed for the beat round Somes and towards the next mark. In the meantime Expresso went screaming off around the top on the island. They were well ahead of us by the time we got to Days Bay.
What’s this up ahead? There’s a blue boat which looks like Upcycled but with no mast. We called them on the VHF but no answer so we decided to deviate off our course to check up on them
It certainly was Craig and his crew on Upcycled who was dismasted. After assuring us they were all OK, Craig requested we put in a ‘Pan Pan’ call which we did on Ch. 16. Wellington Maritime Radio were very helpful.
After a circling round them a few times Craig later confirmed that they had their outboard motor working and would motor back to Evans Bay. We updated Maritime Radio and EB race control and continued our race.
It was now blowing consistently over 20 kts. We put a reef in the mainsail and enjoyed the company of a pod of dolphins as we sailed across the harbour.
Then we rounded Pt Halswell and tacked our way up Evans Bay dodging the wind surfers to the finish line.
We then quickly turned around and headed back home to Chaffers. We had the EBYMBC Christmas Party to get to!
Race Replay:
Here a race replay showing Halo and Expresso based on our AIS tracks using Joshua Groom’s experimental tracking software: https://placebojim.github.io/?id=1J3Lxpl2AC0bAwr9KcsdeI72j6LV7xUeQ
Halo Log Book 