LBYC Long Harbour Race 19 April 2026

Crew: Eduardo, Dean, Murray, Geoff.

Forecast: Northerly 15 kts, easing to 10 kts in the morning, the variable 5 kts in the afternoon.

We left Chaffers at 0838 hrs and made a timely arrival at the start area off Seaview just in time for the 0955 countdown. Course: Start – 23 (p) – 6 (s) – 25 (s) – 26 (s) – 18 (p) – 23 (s) – Finish.

Thirteen boats on the line made for a lively start, but we threaded the needle nicely on starboard and got away clean in the middle of the pack. The new genoa was doing its thing, life was good so far…

Then we met Laissez-Faire. As we neared the mark the big 47 ft Beneteau came up windward of us stealing our wind. We couldn’t lay the mark.

With no lane to tack and traffic closing in, we had no option but do a 360° to get clear. Costly mistake — we rounded near the back.

We were then off on a downwind run to the next mark, the No. 1 Leading Light. We cleanly hoisted our maxi spinnaker and made good speed down the harbour chasing the fleet with Murray on helm.

As we neared the lighthouse Eduardo and Dean quickly dropped the kite and we gybed to lay the mark.

After gybing around the the mark we were then beating into the northerly, still behind most of the fleet.

We tacked just off Karaka Bay then, surprisingly, the wind veered to the northwest. We now sailed directly north up past Kau Point to Pt Halswell in about 15 kts of wind. In the process we passed about five boats who had tacked eastwards out into the harbour.

We couldn’t believe our luck even to the point of wondering if we’d missed one of the marks. A quick check of the the course notes assured us we were fine.

As we rounded Pt Halswell and entered Evans Bay the wind was getting over 25 kts and then the rain came. Torrential rain that felt like hail. Lovely!

Amnesty, who we had overtaken, now sailed ahead. The rest of the fleet (we counted 6 boats) were still behind us as we rounded the Shoal Pile mark.

The wind then died, the sun came out again, and we slowly drifted up the bay.

The breeze eventually filled in and we were off, heading up the harbour to to Somes Island.

The sun came out again as we enjoyed views of a beautiful rainbow as we sailed up the harbour and around the virtual mark north of Mokopuna Island. Great photos Eduardo!

We sailed across the harbour to the Days Bay mark then back up to the Jessie St mark before crossing the finish line at 1425 hrs. Apart from Amnesty, we managed to keep ahead of the boats we had passed at Kau Point. Woohoo!